Subject: [Ltru] "Placeholder" dates in draft Regsitry (was: Re: Progress)

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:25:24 -0800

Marion Gunn <mgunn at egt dot ie> wrote:

> Personally, I feel that adding an artificial date only worsens the 
> confusion of genuine and other errors. As an Archivist, I felt 
> comfortable enough adding "g.d." (abbreviation in Irish for "undated") 
> to entries _sans- known  date of publication. I think following that 
> principle/convention (which is accepted internationally), would help.

Does anyone else feel this would help?  Is the abbreviation "g.d." 
really accepted internationally, or only in Irish-speaking communities?

Personally, I'm open to suggestions on this, as long as I can tell the 
"real" dates from the placeholders and there is no risk that the 
placeholders will end up in the Registry without a chance to fix them at 
or before publication time.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages

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From: Marion Gunn <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:07:42 +0000

Sorry - didn't think that open to misinterpretation! - "g.d." is only  
the Irish expression of a principle/convention accepted  
internationaly in cataloguing books and manuscripts. My suggestion:  
find an expression to suit the LTRU context (a better placeholder  
than a fictitious date).

Hope this helps,
mg

On 14 Feb 2007, at 08:25, scríobh Doug Ewell:

>> comfortable enough adding "g.d." (abbreviation in Irish for  
>> "undated") to entries _sans- known  date of publication. I think  
>> following that principle/convention (which is accepted  
>> internationally), would help.
>>
>
> Personally, I'm open to suggestions on this, as long as I can tell  
> the "real" dates from the placeholders and there is no risk that  
> the placeholders will end up in the Registry without a chance to  
> fix them at or before publication time

- -
Marion Gunn * EGTeo (Estab.1991)
27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn, Baile an
Bhóthair, Co. Átha Cliath, Éire.
* [email-masked] * [email-masked] *

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From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 14:06:38 +0100

On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 12:25:24AM -0800,
 Doug Ewell <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 27 lines which said:

> Does anyone else feel this would help?  

-1 

It would break type checking systems (SQL database with CONSTRAINTS,
XML with schemas, etc).

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From: Marion Gunn <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 16:23:34 +0000

Would such a placeholder as 6666-06-06, 7777-07-07 or 1111-11-11  
break such systems, Stephane?:-)

A quick google for 2008-01-01 finds ten whole pages <http:// 
www.google.ie/search?as_q=&hl=ga&num=10&btnG=Cuardach 
+Google&as_epq=2008-01-01&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr= 
all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=> of events scheduled to happen  
on 2008-01-01, should we live so long.

If you believe that it is not a problem for LTRU to declare  
2008-01-01 a "fictitious" date for its own purposes, then I respect  
your right to hold to that as a matter of principle I do not  
understand, but I do not think that particular choice to be  
intrinsically important and I do believe that a less ambiguous (more  
obvious) placeholder would be less confusing (more help) to human  
readers reviewing the text.
mg

- -

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From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:35:49 -0500

> break such systems, Stephane?:-)

Unfortunately, dates later than 2038 are hard for many systems to
handle.

-- 
John Cowan  [email-masked]    http://ccil.org/~cowan
Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to [Sam], a grey-clad
moving hill.  Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit's eyes,
but the Mumak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him
does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are
but memories of his girth and his majesty.  --"Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"

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From: Marion Gunn <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 16:57:47 +0000

For some systems, yes - hence the inclusion of 1111-11-11.
mg

- -

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From: Addison Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 09:48:30 -0800

1. This is only a temporary problem: it goes away when we get to 
publication.

2. Doug's original solution is sufficient.

Addison

-- 
Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Yahoo! Inc.

Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.

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From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 12:59:58 +0100

On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 11:35:49AM -0500,
 John Cowan <[email-masked]> wrote 

> Unfortunately, dates later than 2038 are hard for many systems to

My favorite DBMS, PostgreSQL, can do it :-)

essais=> CREATE TABLE Events (id SERIAL, name TEXT, date DATE);     
NOTICE:  CREATE TABLE will create implicit sequence "events_id_seq" for "serial" column "events.id"
CREATE TABLE

essais=> INSERT INTO Events (name, date) VALUES ('Foo', '2150-06-03');
INSERT 5346177 1

essais=> INSERT INTO Events (name, date) VALUES ('Bar', '3210-12-29');
INSERT 5346178 1

essais=> SELECT * FROM Events ORDER BY date;    
 id | name |    date    
----+------+------------
  1 | Foo  | 2150-06-03
  2 | Bar  | 3210-12-29
(2 rows)

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From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 16:23:09 +0100

> Unfortunately, dates later than 2038 are hard for many systems to

Then it's a good test, like 2106-02-08... <eg>  

Frank