Re: [whatwg] <time>

Jim O'Donnell 2009-03-16 21.42:
> On 16 Mar 2009, at 20:10, Tom Duhamel wrote:

>> - Calendar is specified in a new attribute ('calendar' or something 
>> similar) and the value of 'datetime' attibute is specified in the 
>> calendar specified by that new attribute

> This seems overly complex to me.
> 
> Can we follow existing practice from TEI ie. datetime may only be 
> Gregorian and no other calendar - calendar (if present) identifies the 
> calendar in the original text (analogous to the way the HTML lang 
> attribute indicates the language of the enclosed text).
> 
> So, a date marked up in a TEI document as
> <date calendar ="julian" value="1547-02-28">18th Feb. 1546</date>
> transforms to the following HTML
> <time calendar="julian" value="1547-02-28">18th Feb. 1546</date>

(Guess you meant "datetime=" - not "value=" in HTML example.)

> My reasoning here is that TEI is already in widespread use, authors 
> familiar with it will expect the same markup practices in HTML and one 
> of the largest uses for historical dates as <time> elements will be 
> transformation of existing TEI documents to HTML.
> 
> It seems dangerous, to me, to adopt a whole new standard for historical 
> dates in HTML when there is an existing standard in wide use.
> Essentially I'm asking that the spec for <time> mirror the existing spec 
> for <date> to make it compatible with historical texts:
> http://www.tei-c.org/Guidelines/P4/html/ref-DATE.html

Specifically, the dangerous difference is that in TEI, the 
@calendar attribute is used for another purpose than what Tom 
suggests: it speaks about the content rather than about the attribute.

Regarding @calendar: I don't know if there is a @title attribute 
in TEI as well. But assuming there isn't, then even as the HTML 5 
draft looks *right now*, it is very possible to convert TEI <date> 
to HTML5 <time> - @calendar isn't needed for that:

<time title="julian" datetime="1547-02-28">18th Feb. 1546</date>

There should not be any need to place - as you suggested in 
another message [1] - a localized form of the ISO format inside 
@title, because, after all, the purpose of @datetime is to make it 
available - possibly in a localized format.

The nice thing about @title is that title speaks about the content 
- always.  Hence it is logical to place "julian" there. If needed, 
it can be expanded by the Julian date in a more detailed format - 
(e.g if the text says "Friday", you can add the full Julian date 
in the tooltip).

Basically, I agree with you: ISO dates only. However, in HTML we 
also need to consider that the purpose of <time> is wider than 
that of <date> in TEI. Therefore it is necessary to specify:

a. purpose of @title: calendar info and/or a date on a historical 
calendar;
b. presentation: when the text is a historical one, the reader 
must know when it gets a historica date and when it gets an ISO date.

(I can certainly live with more calendar formats ... But I suppose 
we won't get agreement on that. ISO is adopted as standard format 
many places - e.g in SQL. And HTML 5 specify SQL in HTML ...)

[1] 
http://www.w3.org/mid/8769D30B-A5C7-4167-9D64-926327F774BE@eatyourgreens.org.uk
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Monday, 16 March 2009 23:23:47 UTC