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Posted to dev@subversion.apache.org by Nuutti Kotivuori <na...@iki.fi> on 2002/05/30 17:17:24 UTC
Human representation of dates, opinions
I think I'm about to write the short term fix for the human
representation of dates - that is 'svn log', 'svn info', 'svnlook' and
so on.
To re-iterate - the long term fix is to possibly make a clientside
configuration variable that can be used to specify the format of the
timestamps - or perhaps just decide on a proper format for everyone.
The short term fix is to make a function that produces some date
strings which are of a decent format atleast, even if not what people
really want.
So, let's see a few formats:
1) 2002-05-30T19:50:45Z
2) 2002-05-30 19:50:45Z
3) 2002-05-30T22:50:45+0300
4) 2002-05-30 22:50:45+0300
5) 2002-05-30 22:50:45 (+0300)
6) 2002-02-22 21:35 GMT
7) Thu May 30 20:15:43 EEST 2002
8) ...
Basically anything that can be formatted by apr_strftime is a
possibility.
Personally, I'd actually pick number three - but I believe most people
wouldn't be happy with it. Give your opinions, I'll get the code ready
in the meantime ;)
-- Naked
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by cm...@collab.net.
Karl Fogel <kf...@newton.ch.collab.net> writes:
> Nuutti Kotivuori <na...@iki.fi> writes:
> > 1) 2002-05-30T19:50:45Z
> > 2) 2002-05-30 19:50:45Z
> > 3) 2002-05-30T22:50:45+0300
> > 4) 2002-05-30 22:50:45+0300
> >
> > 5) 2002-05-30 22:50:45 (+0300)
> > 6) 2002-02-22 21:35 GMT
> > 7) Thu May 30 20:15:43 EEST 2002
> > 8) ...
> >
> > Basically anything that can be formatted by apr_strftime is a
> > possibility.
> >
> > Personally, I'd actually pick number three - but I believe most people
> > wouldn't be happy with it. Give your opinions, I'll get the code ready
> > in the meantime ;)
>
> Any of 4, 5, 6, or 7.
>
> (Ugh on 3. I find the spaces a necessity. My eye can't quickly break
> up the date, or find its end, with there's a T or a Z. I'll bet more
> people are stupid like me than smart like you :-) ).
me st00puhd lyk carl. ned spayses.
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Garrett Rooney <ro...@electricjellyfish.net>.
On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 05:14:27PM -0500, Karl Fogel wrote:
> (Ugh on 3. I find the spaces a necessity. My eye can't quickly break
> up the date, or find its end, with there's a T or a Z. I'll bet more
> people are stupid like me than smart like you :-) ).
i guess i'm stupid like karl, because i also agree that 3 is just
about as unreadable as you can get ;-)
so i'm in favor of any of the choices that use spaces for delimiters
;-)
-garrett
--
garrett rooney Remember, any design flaw you're
rooneg@electricjellyfish.net sufficiently snide about becomes
http://electricjellyfish.net/ a feature. -- Dan Sugalski
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Karl Fogel <kf...@newton.ch.collab.net>.
Nuutti Kotivuori <na...@iki.fi> writes:
> 1) 2002-05-30T19:50:45Z
> 2) 2002-05-30 19:50:45Z
> 3) 2002-05-30T22:50:45+0300
> 4) 2002-05-30 22:50:45+0300
>
> 5) 2002-05-30 22:50:45 (+0300)
> 6) 2002-02-22 21:35 GMT
> 7) Thu May 30 20:15:43 EEST 2002
> 8) ...
>
> Basically anything that can be formatted by apr_strftime is a
> possibility.
>
> Personally, I'd actually pick number three - but I believe most people
> wouldn't be happy with it. Give your opinions, I'll get the code ready
> in the meantime ;)
Any of 4, 5, 6, or 7.
(Ugh on 3. I find the spaces a necessity. My eye can't quickly break
up the date, or find its end, with there's a T or a Z. I'll bet more
people are stupid like me than smart like you :-) ).
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by David Summers <da...@summersoft.fay.ar.us>.
On Thu, 30 May 2002, Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
> On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 08:17:24PM +0300, Nuutti Kotivuori wrote:
> > So, let's see a few formats:
> >
> > 1) 2002-05-30T19:50:45Z
> > 2) 2002-05-30 19:50:45Z
> > 3) 2002-05-30T22:50:45+0300
> > 4) 2002-05-30 22:50:45+0300
> >
> > 5) 2002-05-30 22:50:45 (+0300)
> > 6) 2002-02-22 21:35 GMT
> > 7) Thu May 30 20:15:43 EEST 2002
> > 8) ...
>
<unlurk>
I like #1, #2, #6, with an added day of week at the end.
Why: Easy for humans to read, easy for computer to parse and sort, all
times in same frame of reference.
</unlurk>
--
David Wayne Summers "Linux: Because reboots are for upgrades!"
david@summersoft.fay.ar.us PGP Key: http://summersoft.fay.ar.us/~david/pgp.txt
PGP Key fingerprint = C0 E0 4F 50 DD A9 B6 2B 60 A1 31 7E D2 28 6D A8
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Justin Erenkrantz <je...@apache.org>.
On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 08:17:24PM +0300, Nuutti Kotivuori wrote:
> So, let's see a few formats:
>
> 1) 2002-05-30T19:50:45Z
> 2) 2002-05-30 19:50:45Z
> 3) 2002-05-30T22:50:45+0300
> 4) 2002-05-30 22:50:45+0300
>
> 5) 2002-05-30 22:50:45 (+0300)
> 6) 2002-02-22 21:35 GMT
> 7) Thu May 30 20:15:43 EEST 2002
> 8) ...
The old fogie in me likes #7. -- justin
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Kevin Pilch-Bisson <ke...@pilch-bisson.net>.
On Sat, Jun 01, 2002 at 10:10:20AM +0200, Josef Wolf wrote:
> On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 08:26:02PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
>
> > Oh, yeah, if I were to guess at the form that the average US English
> > speaker would prefer, it would probably be something like:
> >
> > 5/31/2002 5:07:29pm
>
> Yes, that's great! It was always great fun to guess whether it is
> d/m/y or m/d/y. Some really wired minds use even y/m/d.
>
> NO. Please stop this madness _now_ and use something like
> "yyyy-mm-dd hh:MM:ss" which everyone understands and where no one
> needs to guess.
Actuall My preference is for
01 Jun 2002 9:49am +500.
That is the format that I always write dates in, just to be completely clear.
This completely disambiguates the month and day. Of course I'm not US English,
I'm Canadian English :)
>
> --
> -- Josef Wolf -- jw@raven.inka.de --
>
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kevin Pilch-Bisson http://www.pilch-bisson.net
"Historically speaking, the presences of wheels in Unix
has never precluded their reinvention." - Larry Wall
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by cm...@collab.net.
Josef Wolf <jw...@raven.inka.de> writes:
> On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 08:26:02PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
>
> > Oh, yeah, if I were to guess at the form that the average US English
> > speaker would prefer, it would probably be something like:
> >
> > 5/31/2002 5:07:29pm
>
> Yes, that's great! It was always great fun to guess whether it is
> d/m/y or m/d/y. Some really wired minds use even y/m/d.
>
> NO. Please stop this madness _now_ and use something like
> "yyyy-mm-dd hh:MM:ss" which everyone understands and where no one
> needs to guess.
You guys sure are fussing alot about something that just can be
accurate for everyone. Since there's bound to be time drift amongst
all the machines that will ever see any particular printed date, I say
we just use something like:
Rou Ghly Y esterDAY
Las Twee K sometIME
Ess enti A llytoDAY
(spaces added for Karl's readability).
:-)
--C-Mike,
President, J. Pollock Bikeshed Designs.
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Russ Allbery <rr...@stanford.edu>.
Josef Wolf <jw...@raven.inka.de> writes:
> On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 08:26:02PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
>> Oh, yeah, if I were to guess at the form that the average US English
>> speaker would prefer, it would probably be something like:
>>
>> 5/31/2002 5:07:29pm
> Yes, that's great! It was always great fun to guess whether it is
> d/m/y or m/d/y. Some really wired minds use even y/m/d.
> NO. Please stop this madness _now_ and use something like
> "yyyy-mm-dd hh:MM:ss" which everyone understands and where no one
> needs to guess.
You seem to have misunderstood my point, which was certainly not to
advocate an incredibly broken date format like that one.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Josef Wolf <jw...@raven.inka.de>.
On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 08:26:02PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Oh, yeah, if I were to guess at the form that the average US English
> speaker would prefer, it would probably be something like:
>
> 5/31/2002 5:07:29pm
Yes, that's great! It was always great fun to guess whether it is
d/m/y or m/d/y. Some really wired minds use even y/m/d.
NO. Please stop this madness _now_ and use something like
"yyyy-mm-dd hh:MM:ss" which everyone understands and where no one
needs to guess.
--
-- Josef Wolf -- jw@raven.inka.de --
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Russ Allbery <rr...@stanford.edu>.
David Mankin <ma...@ants.com> writes:
> Actually, after hearing from and having to support random web users, it
> seems that typical English-speaking Americans even prefer 5-31-02
> 5:07:29pm much more. However, as a geek who likes dates to have lexical
> sorting == numeric sorting == chronological sorting, and fixed width,
> I'm quite happy with 2002-05-31 17:07:29.
Oh, yeah, if I were to guess at the form that the average US English
speaker would prefer, it would probably be something like:
5/31/2002 5:07:29pm
I think you can get away with four-digit years these days without any real
complaints.
My point wasn't so much that ISO date format is people's preferred format
(although pretty much everyone understands it), but rather that %c
definitely *isn't* it. Unless you've got a system that changes %c
drastically from C locale to en or en_US locale, but I've yet to see one
of those.
> Since I'm lazy, I prefer to see timestamps in (translated to) localtime.
> That way I never see commit datestamps in the future. :-)
Likewise, actually. (Although I do think that if one translates, one
should tack on a time zone just so that one isn't losing information.)
--
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by David Mankin <ma...@ants.com>.
On Fri, 31 May 2002, Russ Allbery wrote:
> This English-speaking American likes 2002-05-31 17:07:29 quite a bit
> better than Fri May 31 17:07:29 2002, which is not my preferred date
> format by any stretch of the imagination.
Actually, after hearing from and having to support random web users, it
seems that typical English-speaking Americans even prefer
5-31-02 5:07:29pm much more. However, as a geek who likes dates to
have lexical sorting == numeric sorting == chronological sorting, and
fixed width, I'm quite happy with 2002-05-31 17:07:29.
I don't have enough experience with international development to have a
valid preference on timezone issues. Since I'm lazy, I prefer to see
timestamps in (translated to) localtime. That way I never see commit
datestamps in the future. :-)
-David Mankin
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Russ Allbery <rr...@stanford.edu>.
Stephan Feder <sf...@stephan-feder.de> writes:
> At least for unix systems, just use strftime() with %c format; the
> output depends on the user's locale setting (LC_TIME).
Unfortunately, I'm not aware of anyone for whom the %c format output in
the C locale is the preferred date/time format. The bit of separating the
month and day from the year is particularly odd. And unfortunately, that
format is pretty well set in stone by now.
This English-speaking American likes 2002-05-31 17:07:29 quite a bit
better than Fri May 31 17:07:29 2002, which is not my preferred date
format by any stretch of the imagination.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Stephan Feder <sf...@stephan-feder.de>.
Nuutti Kotivuori wrote:
>
> I think I'm about to write the short term fix for the human
> representation of dates - that is 'svn log', 'svn info', 'svnlook' and
> so on.
>
> To re-iterate - the long term fix is to possibly make a clientside
> configuration variable that can be used to specify the format of the
> timestamps - or perhaps just decide on a proper format for everyone.
...
At least for unix systems, just use strftime() with %c format; the
output depends on the user's locale setting (LC_TIME).
Regards
Stephan
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Josef Wolf <jw...@raven.inka.de>.
On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 09:31:19AM -0500, Karl Fogel wrote:
> Nuutti Kotivuori <na...@iki.fi> writes:
> > Actually, we have one very feasible option as well:
> > ,----
> > | %c The preferred date and time representation for the
> > | current locale.
> > `----
> >
> > Please give your thoughts on that as well.
>
> Hmmm. Would prefer for Subversion to be consistent across itself, so
> that scripts that parse Subversion output are portable.
ACK! This is why I don't like variant #7.
--
-- Josef Wolf -- jw@raven.inka.de --
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Nuutti Kotivuori <na...@iki.fi>.
Actually, we have one very feasible option as well:
,----
| %c The preferred date and time representation for the
| current locale.
`----
Please give your thoughts on that as well.
-- Naked
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Re: Human representation of dates, opinions
Posted by Alan Langford <ja...@ambitonline.com>.
At 2002/05/30 20:17 +0300, Nuutti Kotivuori wrote:
>5) 2002-05-30 22:50:45 (+0300)
#5 is my preference, although it would be nice to get the day-of-week in
there somehow...
5.1) 2002-05-30 (Thu) 22:50:45 (+0300)
5.2) Thu 2002-05-30 22:50:45 (+0300)
5.3) 2002-05-30 22:50:45 (+0300) Thu
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