Stefan Huszics wrote:
> Xavier Neys wrote:
>
>> Please do not assume some text will always be as short as you think.
>> For instance, displaying a date in a narrow column is a bad idea. Some
>> will be
>> wider than you think (different languages, different formats,
>> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gdp/tests/testdate.xml).
>
> Just out of interest, why not stick to using the internationally
> accepted YYYY-MM-DD format everywhere?
> Of course page layout should preferably not break whatever format is
> used, I just don't understand why people continue to use different
> (often ambiguous) formats when a perfectly good standard exists. Am I
> missing something obvious?

It's the other way around. People have been very creative with their <date>
elements and unless you're going to edit all old files and fix them, it has to
work for those documents as well.

YYYY-MM-DD is indeed a standard date representation and we have been using it
for a while now but it is not a standard way of displaying a date at all.
Some communities will dislike the regression, others will find it unacceptable.
Last but not least, it is not as unambiguous as you think. Users will still
hesitate between YYYY-MM-DD and YYYY-DD-MM.
The fact is there is nothing more explicit than '5 janvier 2002'.

Cheers,
--
/  Xavier Neys
\_ Gentoo Documentation Project
/  French & Internationalisation Lead
\  http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en
/\