[whatwg] Expanding datetime

[Lachlan Hunt]

Ernest Cline wrote:
> 
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Lachlan Hunt <lachlan.hunt at lachy.id.au>
>> 
>> Ernest Cline wrote:
>>> From a practical viewpoint, being able to specify dates before 
>>> January 1, 1 BC (Gregorian) would allow for historical dates not
>>> currently available to be specified in markup of documents 
>>> concerning history.
>> 
>> Such dates do not need to be published on the web in machine
>> readable readable formats.  How often to do you need to book a
>> flight, or add an event to your calendar that far back in the past?
> 
> So the web is now used only for business?  And we'll be able to 
> predict exactly what uses users will want to make of it?

No, I was just trying to emphasise the use cases that some of the 
datetime features have been included for.

> I think not.  The original reason for limiting years to a four digit 
> format was that the relevant standard allowed only that.  That is no 
> longer the case.  At minimum, with signed years now available as an 
> optional part of ISO 8601, datetime should support ±YYYY-MM-DD dates, 
> so as to cover historical dates which some users may find of use, 
> though admittedly probably not business users.

Please describe the authoring use cases that you are trying to solve and 
explain how and why authors or end users would benefit from having such 
dates marked up in a machine readable way, and why would it be in the 
interest of browser vendors to implement this feature?

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/