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Groups > comp.lang.python > #69127

Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant)

Date 2014-03-26 15:02 +0100
From Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be>
Subject Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant)
References <roy-142548.20582725032014@news.panix.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.python
Message-ID <mailman.8577.1395842538.18130.python-list@python.org> (permalink)

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On 26-03-14 01:58, Roy Smith wrote:
> One of my roles on this newsgroup is to periodically whine about 
> stupidities in the Python datetime module.  This is one of those times.
>
> I have some code which computes how long ago the sun set.  Being a nice 
> pythonista, I'm using a timedelta to represent this value.  It would be 
> difficult to imagine a less useful default way to print a timedelta:
>
> previous sunset: -1 day, 22:25:26.295993
>
> The idea of str() is that it's supposed to return a human-friendly 
> representation of a value.  Humans do not say things like, "The sun set 
> 1 day ago plus 22 hours and 25 minutes".
There is a difference between how people say things and what is useful.
I remember when I was studying logarithms, a negative number like -5.73
was written down as ̅6.27 (with a bar only over the six). That notation
had the advantage that the part after the decimal point stayed the same
if you added or subtracted whole numbers. Even if that would change the
sign.

I can't give an honest estimation of how useful this notation is because
I don't use the datetime module often enough. But I can imagine that those
who wrote the module and I expect used it often found it a useful
representation.

-- 
Antoon Pardon

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Thread

YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-03-25 20:58 -0400
  Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2014-03-25 18:19 -0700
  Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-03-26 09:27 +0000
  Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com> - 2014-03-26 08:37 -0500
    Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-03-26 08:04 -0700
      Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com> - 2014-03-26 10:39 -0500
        Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-03-26 17:58 +0200
          Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com> - 2014-03-26 11:34 -0500
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-03-26 19:13 +0200
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2014-03-26 19:12 +0000
              Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2014-03-27 07:06 +1100
      Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-03-26 11:50 -0400
  Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2014-03-26 15:02 +0100
    Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-03-26 16:43 +0200
  Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-27 01:12 +1100
    Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2014-03-27 11:08 +1300
  Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2014-03-26 19:25 -0400
    Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-03-27 00:16 +0000
      Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-27 12:28 +1100
        Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-03-26 21:38 -0400
          Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-03-27 08:40 +0000
      Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Dan Sommers <dan@tombstonezero.net> - 2014-03-27 03:56 +0000
      Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb@gmx.de> - 2014-03-27 11:22 +0100
        Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-27 21:44 +1100
          Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb@gmx.de> - 2014-03-27 12:05 +0100
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-27 22:33 +1100
          Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb@gmx.de> - 2014-03-27 12:25 +0100
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-27 22:42 +1100
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com> - 2014-03-27 06:56 -0500
              Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-03-27 16:04 +0200
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-27 23:20 +1100
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com> - 2014-03-27 08:01 -0500
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-03-27 17:10 -0400
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2014-03-27 17:04 -0700
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-03-27 21:46 -0400
              Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-03-27 21:59 -0400
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-03-27 22:24 -0400
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-28 14:03 +1100
          Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-03-27 08:52 -0400
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2014-03-27 15:12 +0100
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-28 01:15 +1100
            Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-03-27 23:41 +0000
              Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-03-27 20:29 -0400
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2014-03-28 11:43 +1100
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-03-28 11:11 +0000
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-03-28 08:30 -0400
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-03-28 15:10 +0200
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-29 00:19 +1100
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-03-28 09:22 -0400
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2014-03-28 06:30 -0700
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-29 00:32 +1100
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-03-28 09:20 -0400
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-03-28 16:34 +0200
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-03-28 14:35 +0000
                Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-03-29 02:25 +1100
  Re: YADTR (Yet Another DateTime Rant) Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2014-03-26 16:33 -0700

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