Re: even elder races get tired of waiting

[Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>]

* Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> [2021-03-22 21:41]:
> Jean Louis wrote:
> 
> > That is why our Emacs Lisp functions shall be clear in their
> > descriptions what is meant with it and maybe include
> > wordings such as "up to and including the 23rd" or "through
> > the 23rd"
> 
> Yes but again what definition is the most useful in terms of
> usability?

In terms of usability? I would not know how you use it. It is obvious
you do not use function as I use it to calculate and insert the
descriptive timeline as text where various tasks and their periods are
calculated. My timeline is in my opinion more practical, as if I need
4 days for a task and we start on Monday, 1 day ends on Tuesday, 2
days on Wednesday, 3 on Thursday and we complete the task on Friday as
that is Monday plus 4 days.

Monday 10 o'clock is start
Tuesday 10 is 1st day
Wednesday 10 is 2nd day
Thursday 10 is 3rd day
Friday 10 is 4th day and task is completed. But we do not specify
times.

Maybe you should call your function day-mathematical-difference if it
calculates what is difference between days mathematically. I am also
confused. And I do not know how your function works. It looks like
magic for now.

> And what is the most true in terms of data?

To eliminate ambiguity it is best to speak of hours and seconds, as
then it becomes possible to add, reduce, find differences between
time stamps, instead of dates. Internally those dates are sometimes
counted as time stamps, but maybe not, depends of language. If you do
have specific time stamp with seconds then it becomes easier to see
how much time passed.

If you say "days from 1st January", we do not know if you count it
from 1st January 0 o'clock or 1st January 24 o'clock, we also cannot
know if you count "now" as March 22nd 0 o'clock or March 22nd 22:20
o'clock, or maybe March 22nd 24 o'clock. Eliminate those ambiguities
and difference will become mathematically clear.

> And are those the same or two different?

If I would just know what we talk about...

Jean