Re: [libreoffice-l10n] [ANNOUNCE] Locale data date acceptance patterns, localizers HEADS UP please :)

On 01/17/2012 05:23 PM, Eike Rathke wrote:
> On Tuesday, 2012-01-17 07:41:42 +0200, Yury Tarasievich wrote:

> > Actually, it'd be better to have possibility of switching off the
> > feature altogether, "across the installation", as the traditional
> > fractional part separator /comma/ tends quite often to be
> > substituted by the /dot/, in these times.
>
> I'm not sure I understand. If you're saying that people tend to input
> decimal numbers as #.# instead of #,# then better not define the D.M
> date acceptance pattern to prevent confusion, and a #.# input will just
> be a textual string. Is that what you meant?

No, no. Just that these times some people 
(who've taken pains to learn computer, for 
example) tend to use *both* traditional /comma/ 
and non-traditional /dot/ indiscriminately. Sort 
of, putting /dot/ in decimal separator place, 
because "it's so "in computer".

E.g., once upon a time I myself wanted a quick 
spreadsheet or something, and began to enter 
numbers with /dot/ ("what blessed difference 
does it make?"). Imagine an annoyment when my 
inputs were one by one converted to dates (what 
about user working on an installation without a 
favourite locale?) And then I had to hunt for 
the switch-off, because the first place I turned 
to was in Preferences->OOO->General, and there 
wasn't anything about this besides the 
"interpret two-digit year as".

Now, I've noticed that guys from ru_RU team 
requested "D/M/" and "D.M.", precisely for that 
reason, I believe (/slash/ is, of course, a 
traditional symbol for a fraction or division 
sign; single /dot/ is handier to have just as a 
fractional part separator).

But, in fact, both forms are somewhat 
counterproductive, because these 1) are not 
guessable and will require separate learning by 
the user (nobody without specifically learning 
those will enter one of the sequences 
deliberately), and 2) are anyway two digits away 
from the short form of the date (DD.MM.YY).

Of course, if the functionality is there, 
anyway, and has to be "fed" something, even such 
not-quite-intuitive forms will do. *In fact, I 
hereby request "D/M/" and "D.M." for the be_BY, 
please.*

But it would be ever so better to have a 
possibility for computer to not second-guess at 
all, as such guesses might even be culturally 
irrelevant.

> > Historically, it was often D/M (D in Arabic numerals, M in Roman).
>
> With roman numbers that wouldn't work. We could define a D/M pattern,
> but input would have to be in Arabic numerals.

No need to, as it was historical example, anyway.

Yury

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