[whatwg] Expanding datetime

[Charles McCathieNevile]

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:54:37 +0800, Christoph Päper  
<christoph.paeper at crissov.de> wrote:

> Henri Sivonen:
>> Date form widgets are meant for airline and hotel reservations
>
> What about, for instance, adjustable timelines at history websites or  
> virtual skies at astronomic sites?

Hmmm. The ability to show continental drift using a timeline probably  
doesn't need a datetime (century is usually pretty fine-grained). But  
virtual skies are pretty important to historical as well as future stuff.  
There must be about half a billion people who would like to be able to  
recreate the night skies around Bethlehem in a period between say  
-0010-01-01 and 0004-01-01 to see if there is something interesting  
happening.

There are various ecological things that are well-suited to timelines  
stretching back 2009 years. Urban planning and economics is another area  
that may use the ability to look at things 2009 years ago. Historical  
weather modelling is another - there are points in history where the date  
is actually relevant, in particular the ability to match up phenomena  
known to have occurred in order to synchronise dates calculated according  
to different and not entirely-known methods.

As an historian, these seem useful things to be able to do. It would seem  
to me as a browser maker that this doesn't actually complicate life a  
whole lot (I may be wrong - I haven't thought hard about the implications  
yet). As a standards guy, I do not see that being able to do this would  
introduce any particular complications (beyond a few more test cases). I  
am inclined to think that the use cases justify the cost, at least enough  
to investigate further.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
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