[whatwg] <time>

[David Singer]

At 19:26  -0500 13/03/09, Robert J Burns wrote:
>The chief accomplishments of ISO 8601 is the ability to represent 
>dates in a uniform manner and in defining the Gregorian calendar 
>from 1582 to 9999 in an unambiguous way. Beyond those dates it 
>leaves things imprecise and ambiguous.

You keep saying this, but I have yet to hear what is imprecise or 
ambiguous.  Could you be more clear?

>Apart from the topics we're actually disputing? :-) The issue of 
>year 0000 opens a can of worms. Negative numbers open a can of worms.

What can of worms?  In what way is labelling the day before 1 jan 
0001 as 31 dec 0000 unclear?

>1) HTML is often hand-coded and so it places an undue burden on 
>authors to convert non-Gregorian calendar dates to Gregorian 
>calendars dates

so it's better to place that burden on the many readers rather than 
the one writer?  I don't follow you.

>3) ISO 8601 says nothing about the interpretation of non-positive 
>years and so the meaning within ISO 8601 is left ambiguous without 
>further normative criteria

It says it uses consecutive integers as year labels, allows a minus 
sign, and, in case you are in any doubt, has an example of year 0000. 
What is ambiguous?

>1) doesn't even reference ISO 8601,

I agree that would be better.

>2) allows 0000 without attaching sufficient meaning to it

?

>and does not allow any further dates before 0000,

yes, the reason for this prohibition is unclear, as they are well-defined.

>3) does not clearly define the era,

8601 does, or do you mean something else?

>4) and does not provide sufficient document conformance norms for 
>the contents of the 'time' element.

again, details?
-- 
David Singer
Multimedia Standards, Apple Inc.