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

[Ian Hickson]

On Wed, 26 Nov 2008, Pentasis wrote:
> 
> No, I understand. That was not the point I was making. I mean it the 
> other way around.
>
> I am *not* saying that the second example (44BC) should be able to be 
> marked-up like this, but that -because we can't mark that one up- 
> neither shoudl we mark up the second example. In other words the spec 
> should be clear on the fact that it is not intended for this kind of use 
> either. Perhaps it should be more of a "time-stamp"? (like the 
> address-element is actually only used for the author of the 
> article/page/site so this element is like that?)
> 
> I hope I make myself clear?

The spec draws the line already -- it says that the date has to be in the 
proleptic Gregorian calendar, and that the year has to be greater than 
zero. Now admittedly even down near the bottom of that the dates get a bit 
unspecific, but I'm not sure what we can really do about that. Drawing the 
line around 1582 seems somewhat arbitrary as well. At least 0001 is a neat 
place to draw the line, since it is the place at which the syntax would 
have to change in some way.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'