[whatwg] Issues relating to the syntax of dates and times

[Pentasis]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ian Hickson" <ian at hixie.ch>


> On Tue, 25 Nov 2008, Pentasis wrote:
>>
>> This confuses me again ;-) Sorry.  Are you saying that examples and
>> use-cases will be excluded from the spec?
>
> I'm saying that examples of use cases will be included, and that the words
> "use cases" will generally be avoided.
>
>
>> Like I stated before, I understand that times/dates are never *exact*
>> (esp. very old ones). So either this element should get a limited
>> use-case (like blog entries, calendar dates for meetings etc.) or should
>> be able to handle all time/date use-cases (even fictional ones). Either
>> way, this should be explicitly defined or excluded in the spec.
>> shouldn't it?
>
> I've clarified the spec on this topic. Let me know if it is still vague.
>

Well, I hate to be nitpicking here.
But the way it is described now still creates a difference in *possible* 
markup between:

The battle of waterloo was fought on <time datetime="1815-06-18">Sunday 18 
June 1815</time>

and:

Julius Ceasar was assassinated on the ides of march in the year 44BC.

The spec allows us to use the time-element in the first case but not in the 
second, while the type of information and semantics of the sentence are the 
same in both cases and both dates are known dates and agreed upon to be 
true.
I can imagine this to be confusing for authors/users.

Bert