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Article #501Re: What time is it? [Was: Data compression standard]
From: Erik Naggum
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1991 14:10
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1991 14:10
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Lessee, it's June 25th, 1991, 3:51pm local time, or 19910625135127. Alternatively it's 1991-06-25 15:51:27 +02:00. From both a machine- and human-readable point of view, delimiters can be very helpful in disambiguating syntaxes. A string of digits is not much different from a string of bits, as I see it. Especially as the string gets longer, it's hard for humans to sort out what's what. Pick out the day of the month from 19910625135127 and 1991-06-25 15:51:27, as a simple exercise. Further, I don't want to see heuristics added to the parsing algorithm in order to find out what time was _really_ intended. E.g. is 91-06-25 a date 1900 years ago or just a sloppy syntax? Is 91062515512744 now, with centisecond precision, 1900 years ago with centisecond precision or the 15th day of th 25th month of the year 9106 at 51:27:44? Ok, so it isn't the latter, because it's absurd, but there are cases where it would be hard to figure it out. </Erik> -- Erik Naggum Professional Programmer +47-2-836-863 Naggum Software Electronic Text <erik@naggum.no> 0118 OSLO, NORWAY Computer Communications <enag@ifi.uio.no>
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<859@spam.ua.oz> <3761@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au> <shores.677707660@fergvax> <1991Jun25.001607.28886@redsox.bsw.com>Show Full Headers
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!fuug!sics.se!ifi.uio.no!enag From: enag@ifi.uio.no (Erik Naggum) Newsgroups: comp.std.internat Subject: Re: What time is it? [Was: Data compression standard] Message-ID: <ENAG.91Jun25161013@gyda.ifi.uio.no> Date: 25 Jun 91 14:10:18 GMT References: <859@spam.ua.oz> <3761@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au> <shores.677707660@fergvax> <1991Jun25.001607.28886@redsox.bsw.com> Sender: enag@ifi.uio.no (Erik Naggum) Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway Lines: 25 Nntp-Posting-Host: gyda.ifi.uio.no In-Reply-To: campbell@redsox.bsw.com's message of 25 Jun 91 00: 16:07 GMT Originator: enag@gyda.ifi.uio.no