[uf-discuss] human readable date parsing

[Scott Reynen]

On May 4, 2007, at 3:29 AM, Breton Slivka wrote:

>>> I don't think this will work, for the same reason tel-type and  
>>> adr- type don't work: l10n/i18n. They require displayed machine  
>>> values to  be in English.
>>>
>>> <span class="vmonth" lang="en">July</span>
>>> <span class="vmonth" lang="es">julio</span>
>>> <span class="vmonth" lang="jp">7 月</span>
>>> <span class="vmonth" lang="ru">июль</span>
>>
>> good point ...
>>
>> parsing it might end up needing a database of day and month names  
>> and character sets and numbers in every known language!
>> (possibly also other types of calendars that might be used in some  
>> parts of the world ... this could get very complicated very quickly!)

> And yet, to not do so means breaking another restriction. It's  
> about give and take. Is it better to make it easier for publishers,  
> and harder for parsers, or is it better to store the same date  
> twice, and let one go out of sync?

I'd invite you to document the list of every possible way to  
represent each month in plain text, and then let us know if you still  
think reading through such a list to figure out how to publish dates  
is easier for publishers.

Peace,
Scott