Re: Date arithmetic

From	Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.javascript
Subject	Re: Date arithmetic
Date	2014-11-25 21:17 +0000
Organization	Home
Message-ID	<ETmZPw8nHPdUFwS1@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid> (permalink)
References	(15 earlier) <1580490.WhVdJr593u@PointedEars.de> <e8GvEwN+N8bUFwS$@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid> <3141518.r5G2MTVnWM@PointedEars.de> <voTjR5j2ejcUFw9J@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid> <2322297.0aiH9ipvOy@PointedEars.de>

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In comp.lang.javascript message <2322297.0aiH9ipvOy@PointedEars.de>,
Mon, 24 Nov 2014 01:14:03, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn
<PointedEars@web.de> posted:

>Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>
>> […] Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn […] posted:
>>> Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>>>>>> Note that such Date arithmetic can be unreliable near the
>>>>>> International Date Line, because of occurrences such as the omission
>>>>>> of 2011-12-30 Fr1 by Samoa (non-US) and Tokelau.
>>>>>
>>>>> Which is why UTC should be used instead.
>>>>
>>>> […]
>>>> Using UTC will be no help whatsoever in dealing with locations which
>>>> have used or will use a discontinuous calendar in the interval in
>>>> question.
>>>
>>> It is the year 2014 of the Gregorian Calendar, we are talking about
>>> future bookings, and “Swifty”’s holiday cottage is located near
>>>Bunessan,
>>> on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, United Kingdom.
>>
>> But responses in Usenet are read not only by the original questioner,
>> but in some cases by many other people.
>
>Red herring.  Using UTC avoids the problem of possible DST switches with
>local time.  Neither UTC nor local time can avoid the non-existence of dates
>at a specific location, and the inability of ECMAScript implementations to
>deal with that natively.  So your statement that “UTC will be no help
>whatsoever in dealing with those locations” is simply false.

No, it is true (except that (1) UTC will help with any locations that
have seasonal clock changes, and (2) UTC will be faster).

If Swifty had been operating a cottage in Western Samoa at that time, he
would have needed to avoid "Sommerzeit" difficulties in the same way as
he now does, and he would have needed also to consider how he wanted to
handle a six-day week.

Note that DST is a US term for something which the more sagacious refer
to as Summer Time or local translation.  I'm pleased to learn from
Wikipedia that DST may refer to the Darlington & Stockton Times, a long-
established English local newspaper.

>> And what Samoa has done recently might be done, in either direction, by
>> such places in the near future.  And it is even possible that Swifty's
>> cottage may have future bookings from residents of such places.
>
>It is irrelevant where his guests are from.  It is relevant where is cottage
>is located because his guests pay for the days they spend *there* instead of
>their home.  So again, do you have reason to believe that the United Kingdom
>is going to skip dates in the future?  If not, why are you arguing?

The benevolent Swifty will want to help his guests arrive on the British
date that they are expecting to arrive on.

>> Your file date.js misuses the term "timezone" or "time zone";
>
>Prove it.

Read Wikipedia on Time Zone, and the sites of the better National
Standards laboratories to show that Wikipedia is right.  The IERS should
be especially authoritative, but may consider the matter off-topic.  You
can also read my Web site.  Do not, of course, believe Microsoft, or
indeed any American outside NIST and its associates, or ECMA.

>> and its week number calculation resembles that of the inept Microsoft.
>
>Then it is fortunate that we have you to correct it.  If only the code that
>you write would be readable as being conforming to any generally agreed-upon
>code standard for ECMAScript-based programming languages…

Feel free to present your own version of mine, with appropriate
acknowledgement, and send me 50% of any profits.  My code has the
advantages of being compact, of being based on an understanding of ISO
8601, and of always giving the right results if the JavaScript engine is
free of relevant bugs (so not in the latest Safari for Windows) - it may
also require the year to be non-negative.

>> At least one of your site's "entry" pages behaves badly in a browser
>> using Zoom Text Only.
>
>A setting that for good reasons has not been the default for several years,
>if not a decade now, and is absent from the majority of current, widely
>distributed user agents.  But I will look into it.  If you really would like
>to help with that, you should point out which “entry 'page'” exhibits
>problems in that regard and how it “behaves badly”, exactly.

For example, <http://pointedears.de/>, <http://pointedears.de/index.en>,
<http://pointedears.de/index.ru> - the latter of which (like index.de)
contains more English than at first sight seems entirely right.  And you
seem to have missed the most recent Firefox updates.  Look also, for
example, at the top of <http://pointedears.de/wsvn/>

It is not worth describing the faults, since they are blatantly evident
on test by zooming the text bigger.  Note that to see some of the
failures at their best one may need a not-too-big window.

Note that Zoom Text Only is likely to be most used by the more mature
users (who sometimes have the most money), and those with disabilities
of sight (who should be assisted at least as much as is reasonably
possible)

-- 
 (c) John Stockton, nr London UK.  ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk  DOS 3.3, 6.20; WinXP.
  Web  <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQqish topics, acronyms and links.
   PAS EXE TXT ZIP via  <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/00index.htm>
   My DOS  <http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/batfiles.htm> - also batprogs.htm.

Thread

Date arithmetic Swifty <steve.j.swift@gmail.com> - 2014-11-11 12:38 +0000
  Re: Date arithmetic "Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> - 2014-11-11 15:10 +0100
    Re: Date arithmetic Swifty <steve.j.swift@gmail.com> - 2014-11-11 22:07 +0000
      Re: Date arithmetic Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-11-11 22:37 +0000
        Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-12 02:40 +0100
          Re: Date arithmetic "Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> - 2014-11-12 08:21 +0100
            Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-13 15:27 +0100
              Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-13 21:26 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-14 14:16 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-15 07:13 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-15 19:36 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-16 17:24 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-16 18:49 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-17 00:14 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <J.R.Stockton@physics.org> - 2014-11-16 10:51 -0800
                Re: Date arithmetic "Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> - 2014-11-16 20:17 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-17 00:52 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-17 01:11 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-18 16:18 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-19 11:00 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-21 22:58 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-22 18:33 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-23 19:38 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-24 01:14 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-25 21:17 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-26 18:25 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-27 19:34 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-28 01:25 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <J.R.Stockton@physics.org> - 2014-11-28 05:29 -0800
                Re: Date arithmetic Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2014-11-28 11:44 +1100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <J.R.Stockton@physics.org> - 2014-11-28 04:52 -0800
                Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-28 14:24 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-28 14:47 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <J.R.Stockton@physics.org> - 2014-11-28 06:12 -0800
                Re: Date arithmetic Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2014-11-29 16:59 +1100
                Re: Date arithmetic John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-29 20:05 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Joao Rodrigues <groups_jr-1@yahoo.com> - 2014-11-29 23:47 -0200
                Re: Date arithmetic Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2014-12-01 10:44 +1100
                Re: Date arithmetic Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-11-30 23:54 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Andrew Poulos <ap_prog@hotmail.com> - 2014-12-01 13:01 +1100
                Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-17 01:34 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-17 01:41 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-18 19:06 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-18 16:26 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-19 17:52 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2014-11-19 09:44 -0800
                Re: Date arithmetic "Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> - 2014-11-19 19:34 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-11-19 19:13 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic "Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> - 2014-11-19 22:18 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2014-11-19 13:43 -0800
                Re: Date arithmetic Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-11-19 22:40 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-11-19 22:51 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-11-19 23:35 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-19 23:10 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-11-19 22:32 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-11-19 23:26 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-20 00:47 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-11-20 00:17 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <J.R.Stockton@physics.org> - 2014-11-20 01:18 -0800
                Re: Date arithmetic Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-11-20 13:47 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-21 22:29 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Joao Rodrigues <groups_jr-1@yahoo.com.br> - 2014-11-19 19:24 -0200
                Re: Date arithmetic Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2014-11-19 13:40 -0800
                Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-19 23:40 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-18 16:44 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-19 11:20 +0100
                Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-14 20:45 +0000
                Re: Date arithmetic "Michael Haufe (TNO)" <tno@thenewobjective.com> - 2014-11-15 14:13 -0800
                Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-15 23:42 +0100
      Re: Date arithmetic "Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> - 2014-11-12 00:23 +0100
      Re: Date arithmetic Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-11-12 13:24 +0000
        Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-12 14:43 +0100
          Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-12 19:48 +0100
            Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-13 01:18 +0100
          Re: Date arithmetic Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-11-12 20:19 +0000
            Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-13 03:42 +0100
    Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-12 20:06 +0000
    Re: Date arithmetic RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2014-11-23 20:51 -0800
      Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-25 20:08 +0000
        Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-26 01:31 +0100
        Re: Date arithmetic RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2014-12-08 19:42 -0800
      Re: Date arithmetic "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@arcor.de> - 2014-11-26 01:40 +0100
      Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-26 22:07 +0100
        Re: Date arithmetic RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2014-12-08 21:41 -0800
          Re: Date arithmetic "Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> - 2014-12-09 09:47 +0100
          Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-12-09 14:17 +0100
          Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-12-10 23:34 +0000
            Re: Date arithmetic RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2014-12-10 17:21 -0800
              Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-12-13 17:19 +0000
          Re: Date arithmetic RobG <rgqld@iinet.net.au> - 2014-12-10 18:35 -0800
  Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-11 22:29 +0100
    Re: Date arithmetic Swifty <steve.j.swift@gmail.com> - 2014-11-11 21:53 +0000
      Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-11 23:43 +0100
        Re: Date arithmetic John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-12 15:49 +0000
  Re: Date arithmetic Dr J R Stockton <reply1400@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2014-11-12 19:58 +0000
  Re: Date arithmetic Dr.Kral@nyc.rr.com - 2014-11-13 20:24 -0500
    Re: Date arithmetic Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2014-11-14 04:34 +0100

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