From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Pascal J. Bourguignon" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: The Emacs Calculator and calendar Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2012 23:14:48 +0200 Organization: Informatimago Message-ID: <87haq8r587.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> References: <87y5jk3f7d.fsf@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1349471716 20309 80.91.229.3 (5 Oct 2012 21:15:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 21:15:16 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Oct 05 23:15:16 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1TKFEo-0000vD-UG for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Oct 2012 23:15:15 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:40578 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TKFEi-0002BW-V2 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:15:08 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:45933) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TKFEf-00025K-NP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:15:06 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TKFEe-0001Dv-E0 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:15:05 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:55220) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TKFEe-0001CX-7p for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:15:04 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1TKFEh-0000tf-Tj for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Oct 2012 23:15:07 +0200 Original-Received: from 81.202.16.46.dyn.user.ono.com ([81.202.16.46]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 05 Oct 2012 23:15:07 +0200 Original-Received: from pjb by 81.202.16.46.dyn.user.ono.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 05 Oct 2012 23:15:07 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 35 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.202.16.46.dyn.user.ono.com Face: iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADAAAAAwAQMAAABtzGvEAAAABlBMVEUAAAD///+l2Z/dAAAA oElEQVR4nK3OsRHCMAwF0O8YQufUNIQRGIAja9CxSA55AxZgFO4coMgYrEDDQZWPIlNAjwq9 033pbOBPtbXuB6PKNBn5gZkhGa86Z4x2wE67O+06WxGD/HCOGR0deY3f9Ijwwt7rNGNf6Oac l/GuZTF1wFGKiYYHKSFAkjIo1b6sCYS1sVmFhhhahKQssRjRT90ITWUk6vvK3RsPGs+M1RuR mV+hO/VvFAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg== X-Accept-Language: fr, es, en User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:ZWI3MDRmZmI5YThmMWMzMmNlZDQ0YzVkYjdhYTVmMTBlZDJmYWQzNg== X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:154106 Archived-At: Edward Reingold writes: > > On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:13 PM, Jay Belanger wrote: > > So, for example, the day before September 14, 1752 is > September 2, 1752 according to Calc and September 13, 1752 according > to the calendar. > > Is this acceptable, or should they be made consistent? > > I would say it even more strongly: the Unix cal and the Emacs calc are > foolish chimeras; there were hundreds of different dates of adoption > of the Gregorian calendar, stretching almost 400 years. Emacs > calendar does the only sane thing. Indeed, it's perfectly acceptable, and probably preferable to just give the Gregorian dates. If you want to be more exact, you need not only to specify a calendar from the date and location (including the planet), but also political or religious power you're abiding to, and even with that, we lack a lot of information given that a lot of calendars were relative (to the reign of the current monarch, or the foundation of the local city), and that we may not have all the information needed to synchronize them. What would be the birth date of Cochise's great great great grand father? I mean, assuming you know how many seconds ago he was born, it was before the Americas went under the political power of European countries. Each tribe had its own moon names, I don't know if they even had absolute year counters. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.