Subject: Re: Bug#4329: Emacs has hardcoded path for jka-compr, breaks at upgrade

From: Dale Scheetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 15:26:16 -0400 (EDT)

On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Ian Jackson wrote:

> [1] Yes, I know it was probably deliberate, but American middle-endian
> date-formats are stupid and confusing and I want them stamped out.
> 
You have better things to do than to stamp about for the rest of your
life. Also, you will never get anyone's attention when you address them as
"Hey stupid!".
No matter that I understand your desire to have sortable dates, I will
continue to write my checks with middle-endian dates, if for no other
reason than that, otherwise, my "stupid" bank will not be able to cash it.

Luck,

Dwarf

------------                                          --------------

aka   Dale Scheetz                   Phone:   1 (904) 877-0257
      Flexible Software              Fax:     NONE 
      Black Creek Critters           e-mail:  [email-masked]

------------ If you don't see what you want, just ask --------------

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From: Rob Browning <[email-masked]>
Date: 01 Sep 1996 16:38:25 -0500

> reason than that, otherwise, my "stupid" bank will not be able to cash it.

1) Middle endian dates *are* stupid.  Ian didn't say the people using
them were (though I have my suspicions about what he really thinks :>)

2) For now (probably forever), we in America, in many areas, are stuck
with them.

3) People should be encouraged not to use them.

3) If you use the format "23 Aug 1996", even the bank can figure it out.

4) This is not a big deal.  Use the better format when you can, and
use the stupid one when you have to.

5) Debian should use either the big or little endian format and always
use four digits for the year.  That way we won't have trouble when the
millenium hits, and you can always tell by looking if it's big or
little endian.

--
Rob

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From: Lars Wirzenius <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 07:53:10 +0300

This is really off-topic, but it's one of my pet peeves. Sorry.

> millenium hits, and you can always tell by looking if it's big or

I've had some experience with how people from all over the world
write dates. I used to fix dates by hand for the LSM database
(it's automatic now, and people who send them must check
them). The only official LSM date format is ddMMMyy, where dd
is two digits for day of month, MMM is first the letters of the
English name of the month, and yy is the last two digits of the
year (which lets us reach the 2090's). All other date formats
seem to invite a large number of errors. For reasons unknown,
people _will_ write dates in the form yyyy-dd-mm. Don't ask me
why, but they do. Up to several percent of them.

Having the month spelled out as text is the only way to make
dates unambiguous.

(I don't care if date formats are stupid or not, just whether
they work.)

-- 
Please read <http://www.iki.fi/liw/mail-to-lasu.html> before mailing me.
Please don't Cc: me when replying to my message on a mailing list.

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From: Rob Browning <[email-masked]>
Date: 02 Sep 1996 02:40:02 -0500

Lars Wirzenius <[email-masked]> writes:

> The only official LSM date format is ddMMMyy, where dd
> year (which lets us reach the 2090's).

Why in the world wouldn't you want to require 4 digits for the date?
Storage is not that expensive, and who wants to always have to special
case the weird wrap around at 00?  

Without the special casing, things break in 4 years.  By requiring 2
extra characters, you buy yourself an extra eight thousand years or
so, and if humans are still using any of these systems by then I'd be
surprised (if I weren't dead).

> For reasons unknown, people _will_ write dates in the form
> yyyy-dd-mm. Don't ask me why, but they do. Up to several percent of
> them.

It's because they will sort properly with a standard alphabetical
sort, like that used by "ls", or perl's default "sort", etc.

> Having the month spelled out as text is the only way to make

As long as you disallow middle endian, the four digit year makes
little or big endian unambiguous.
 
--
Rob

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From: Lars Wirzenius <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 11:33:09 +0300

> Why in the world wouldn't you want to require 4 digits for the date?

Because of all the usual bad reasons, and one good one: it
doesn't matter.  The LSM dates are always past tense, and
making the new requirement is trivial, all of thirty seconds
of coding.  Converting all old dates (once they've been checked)
is also trivial.

Ambiguity is the problem with LSM, not Y2K.

> sort, like that used by "ls", or perl's default "sort", etc.

yyy-mm-dd will sort properly, but yyyy-dd-mm will not.

> little or big endian unambiguous.

Only if you assume people don't make errors. If I tell you that
I wrote something 1996-10-09, you must either assume I _really_
meant 1996-09-10, or that I am a liar. With 10SEP96 (or 10SEP1996)
there is no problem.

That's the problem, isn't it? People do make mistakes, and the
date format might as well guard against it, if the checking
can't be done at the input stage.

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From: [email-masked] (Kai Henningsen)
Date: 01 Sep 1996 23:11:00 +0200

> life. Also, you will never get anyone's attention when you address them as

That's probably why he didn't address anybody that way. I'll never  
understand why people can't distinguish between "this idea is stupid" and  
"you are stupid". It's not a very difficult concept, after all.

> No matter that I understand your desire to have sortable dates, I will

Make that understandable dates. The xx/yy/zz dates all too often aren't.

Which day is 10/11/12? Unless you know which part of the world the writer  
lived in, it's impossible to say.

> reason than that, otherwise, my "stupid" bank will not be able to cash it.

I have no idea about your checks, but I really don't care. I do care about  
what people write, say, on mailing lists.

And really, the xx/yy/zz date formats are only very slightly more  
intelligent in such a place, than addressing everybody as "you" and  
ignoring names.

MfG Kai

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From: [email-masked] (Kai Henningsen)
Date: 02 Sep 1996 19:41:00 +0200

> sort, like that used by "ls", or perl's default "sort", etc.

Except that that's not true. yyyy-mm-dd is the thing that will sort ok.

> little or big endian unambiguous.

I suspect that a significant percentage of people who are used to middle  
endian will use it even in the 1996-09-02 version.

As long as none of these is here to get offended, I'll say that this  
proves that the combination of stupid formats with stupid people is  
harmful.

Also, I'll suggest that 01Jan02 *will* be gotten wrong by some people. Use  
4 digit years, Lars.

(Oh, one minor point. 4 digit years actually buy a lot more than 8000  
years iff there are delimiters around the number. Both 123456-12-31 and  
31Dec123456 are perfectly parsable, should you ever need them, and also  
very obvious extensions.)

MfG Kai

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From: Rob Browning <[email-masked]>
Date: 02 Sep 1996 13:34:01 -0500

> Except that that's not true. yyyy-mm-dd is the thing that will sort ok.

My mistake.  I misread.  That's what I meant to type.

> very obvious extensions.)

Very true, and convenient.  I suppose it wouldn't sort properly with
the naive algorithm, but I guess we'll probably have systems that can
handle it by the year 9999 :>

--
Rob