- From: <jon@hackcraft.net>
- Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 12:58:06 +0000
- To: Lois Wakeman <lois@lois.co.uk>
- Cc: WAI list <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> *If* there are no language constraints, then spelling the month out is
> unambiguous whatever format (conventional US, EU, JP) you choose. (I realise
> that is a big if)
Yes, I mustn't have been making myself clear when I said that you should use
the full month name if you can.
It's only when a client is stupid enough to insist on a short date (for reasons
I never understand but figure must have something to do with the physical size
on the screen) but not so stupid as to insist on having a date like 03/04/1984
that I'd use 8601 in a human-targetted context.
> And as Tina says, no Europeans I know use the ISO standard in real life,
> which is presumably what we were originally discussing in the context of
> form entries.
Despite knowing a few Europeans who use 8601 in real life (mostly people like
myself who got used to it from particular contexts) I'll agree with that. The
problem is though that the formats 03/04/1984, 04/03/1984, 03-04-1984 and 04-03-
1984 simply don't work unless:
a. You have good locale information about the user (language isn't enough for
anything better than a good guess).
b. The user knows you have good locale information about them, and hence that
you chose the format they'd use, rather than your own preference.
--
Jon Hanna | Toys and books
<http://www.hackcraft.net/> | for hospitals:
| <http://santa.boards.ie/>
Received on Friday, 5 December 2003 07:58:12 UTC