[whatwg] <time>

[Andy Mabbett]

In message <20090314083450.GA30142 at stripey.com>, Smylers
<Smylers at stripey.com> writes

>This thread appears to be proving that dates are very complicated and
>that to get them right for the general case involves lots of subtleties,

All true.

>which would be a reason for punting -- only doing the simplest possible
>thing for now, acknowledging that that doesn't meet all desirable
>scenarios, and leaving everything else for HTML 6.

I'm not clear on what basis you reach that conclusion from the
undisputed facts above.

>Even attempts to produce a small list of changes that we have consensus
>on yields others disputing them, showing that we don't have consensus.

...yet.

>> Right now we have a draft that: 2) allows 0000 without attaching
>> sufficient meaning to it
>
>I don't think that's the case; the algorithm for parsing a year requires
>a number "greater than zero":

What a pity that human history - as published "in the wild" - doesn't
fit that convenient shortcut.

>So my suggestion for a spec change is to replace "zero" with "1582".
>That further reduces the set of dates that <time> can represent, but
>avoids the complexity of pre-Gregorian dates, and avoids inadvertently
>giving a meaning to them that hampers the efforts of a future version of
>HTML to do all of this right.

What advantage does deferring this problem give us, other than
side-stepping something which needs to be addressed?

-- 
Andy Mabbett
            Says  "NO! to compulsory UK ID Cards":  <http://www.no2id.net/>
            and:  "Free Our Data":  <http://www.freeourdata.org.uk>
                   (both also on Facebook)