- From: Charles McCathieNevile <chaals@opera.com>
- Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:34:27 +0800
On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:54:37 +0800, Christoph P?per
<christoph.paeper at crissov.de> wrote:
> Henri Sivonen:
>> Date form widgets are meant for airline and hotel reservations
>
> What about, for instance, adjustable timelines at history websites or
> virtual skies at astronomic sites?
Hmmm. The ability to show continental drift using a timeline probably
doesn't need a datetime (century is usually pretty fine-grained). But
virtual skies are pretty important to historical as well as future stuff.
There must be about half a billion people who would like to be able to
recreate the night skies around Bethlehem in a period between say
-0010-01-01 and 0004-01-01 to see if there is something interesting
happening.
There are various ecological things that are well-suited to timelines
stretching back 2009 years. Urban planning and economics is another area
that may use the ability to look at things 2009 years ago. Historical
weather modelling is another - there are points in history where the date
is actually relevant, in particular the ability to match up phenomena
known to have occurred in order to synchronise dates calculated according
to different and not entirely-known methods.
As an historian, these seem useful things to be able to do. It would seem
to me as a browser maker that this doesn't actually complicate life a
whole lot (I may be wrong - I haven't thought hard about the implications
yet). As a standards guy, I do not see that being able to do this would
introduce any particular complications (beyond a few more test cases). I
am inclined to think that the use cases justify the cost, at least enough
to investigate further.
cheers
Chaals
--
Charles McCathieNevile Opera Software, Standards Group
je parle fran?ais -- hablo espa?ol -- jeg l?rer norsk
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Received on Thursday, 24 April 2008 18:34:27 UTC