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From: Varun Varada <varuncvarada@gmail.com>
To: Eric Wong <e@yhbt.net>
Cc: meta@public-inbox.org
Subject: Re: [Patch] Update 24-hour times to use two digits for the hour
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2020 19:11:27 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAD2i4DBv5JJPKVOz4tvrzwbRBveGymGvS4u37Eida6wnSnMDJQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20200605232757.GA28110@dcvr>

Hi Eric,

The issue of being able to determine whether a reply was on a
different day still arises with your method, as replies that occurred
before 12:00 on the same day would have the same problem. Either way,
it is just as easy to see the changeover to the next day if it was a
leading zero, as that indicates a reset of the clock, and it seems
like quite a subjective preference.

Nevertheless, it seems like the trade-off of making users learn
something once vs. repetitively is a false one, given that most people
are already familiar with seeing times with leading zeroes as 24-hour
times, and furthermore reading ISO 8601 formats in general. The idea
of "teaching one thing" in order to make the "output intended for
humans" ultimately easier to read seems to defeat its original
purpose, since people would have to unlearn what they already learned
every time they quickly glance through the output. I hope you'll
reconsider.

Regards,
Varun

On Fri, 5 Jun 2020 at 18:27, Eric Wong <e@yhbt.net> wrote:
>
> Varun Varada <varuncvarada@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Eric,
> >
> > The "why?" is that leading zeroes are standard for virtually any
> > 24-hour clock in the world
> > (https://www.google.com/search?q=24-hour+time). This is even codified
> > in the ISO 8601 standard
> > (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Times), which the project
> > seems to be following. Without a leading zero, a user immediately
> > expects an a.m./p.m. modifier, which there is not.
>
> Sorry, but no.  This project does NOT blindly follow ISO-8601 or
> such standards when it comes to output intended for humans.
>
> I admit the lack of AM/PM could be confusing at first in
> standalone cases; but someone needs to learn that exactly once.
>
> What I care more about is repeated tasks.  Making users focus
> their eyes and waste energy parsing date and times for every
> single thread they look at is much worse than training them
> for one thing.
>
> Take for example:
> https://public-inbox.org/git/20200222201749.937983-1-sandals@crustytoothpaste.net/T/#t
>
> 2020-02-24 18:26   ` Junio C Hamano
> 2020-02-25 10:29   ` Johannes Schindelin
> 2020-02-25 19:25     ` Junio C Hamano
> 2020-02-26  3:05       ` brian m. carlson
> 2020-02-26  3:11         ` Junio C Hamano
> 2020-02-26  2:23     ` brian m. carlson
> 2020-02-27 13:24       ` Johannes Schindelin
> 2020-02-27 15:06         ` Junio C Hamano
>
> With the leading space instead of zero, my eyes don't even need
> to be in focus to know the replies from 2-26 were on a different
> day than the rest.  The shape of the text is enough to tell,
> I don't have to bring my eyes into focus to know that.

  reply	other threads:[~2020-06-06  0:11 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-06-05 20:22 [Patch] Update 24-hour times to use two digits for the hour Varun Varada
2020-06-05 22:03 ` Eric Wong
2020-06-05 22:48   ` Varun Varada
2020-06-05 23:27     ` Eric Wong
2020-06-06  0:11       ` Varun Varada [this message]
2020-06-06  0:27         ` Eric Wong
2020-06-06 21:27     ` Dmitry Alexandrov

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