[whatwg] Client side value for language preference

Matthew Nuzum newz at bearfruit.org
Fri Mar 30 11:16:17 PDT 2012


On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 9:22 AM, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen at iki.fi> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 5:08 PM, Matthew Nuzum <newz at bearfruit.org> wrote:
>> For example, maybe a site can't afford translation but a small library
>> could be included that formats dates and numbers based on a user's
>> language preference. No more wondering if 2/3/12 is in March or in
>> February.
>
> The reader doesn't know that the site tries to be smart about dates
> (but not smart enough to just use ISO dates), so scrambling the order
> of date components not to match the convention of the language of the
> page is probably worse than using the convention that's congruent with
> the language of the page.

Your points are well taken. My illustration was just an example of
what could easily be possible if client side code could access the
user's preferences. I do believe that the design could be created in a
way that does not confuse users.

I look forward to having the option to work that out.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin and twitter

♫ You're never fully dressed without a smile! ♫



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