value semantics

hello chris.

> If we build this in the sites that care about it will follow the
> standard.  Especially, if there are well documented translation
> algorithms...

not that the details of this are important for this list, but i think 
the design of the iCal standard is a bad one. here is where it defines a 
date http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2445#section-4.3.4 and this does not 
say anything about a calendar type or that the semantics of the date 
might change based on an optional parameter or even future versions of 
the standard. on the other hand, it references iso 8601, which i think 
hardcodes the gregorian calendar as the way how dates should be 
interpreted. i think this is not a robust design, but this comment is 
based on my 10min examination of iCal, so i might be (and almost hope to 
be) wrong.

but it is important to be clear amount the semantics of values, and 
reference systems for measurement values clearly are part of that.

cheers,

dret.  UC Berkeley - School of Information (ISchool)

Received on Wednesday, 25 June 2008 22:36:08 UTC