Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Islamic Calendar

On 12/08/16 07:49 AM, CVAlkan wrote:
> The usage for a Calendar must also be considered. In addition to changes
> depending on country, culture, religion and all the other considerations
> mentioned, there is the issue of moment in time. Genealogy and History
> (including dependent disciplines such as archeology, et. al.) require a lot
> more knowledge.
>
> Even those who share the "same" calendar (such as the Gregorian) don't
> always have the same view of what date it is. For someone in Germany, the
> 3rd of September 1752 followed the 2nd of September 1752. In the American
> Colonies however, the day after Wednesday September 2nd was Thursday
> September 14th. (Unix/Linux systems support this; try typing "cal 1752" at
> the command line and, depending on locale, you may be surprised.) Other
> countries using the Gregorian calendar "corrected" its accumulated errors at
> quite different times, but they all have similar burps in their calendars.
>
> And don't forget the French revolutionary calendar. Napoleon's greatest
> contribution to France might just have been his abolishment of that unusual
> thirteen month calendar. Ben Franklin, who traveled between France and the
> American colonies in those years likely experienced far worse jet lag than
> any of us ever had from air travel.
>
> The point is, I suppose, that we must settle for the 99% of needs we have;
> it seems unlikely that any software will ever support *every* such
> variation. Right now, we're probably in the upper 80% range, but that's all
> we're likely to see.
>
> Have a great day, whatever date you suspect it might be.
That makes a case for some inclusion in locale but a pretty Euro-centric 
one of limited usefulness except to historians. I'd argue that locale 
dependency more correctly should be a search-term dependency since the 
date depends more on the area you are investigating rather than the 
place you are residing.

I note that a similar issue occurred in Europe when the start of the new 
year was moved from Easter to January 1. Historians deal with it by 
listing both years for dates prior to switch. I suspect that they 
probably do something similar, or cite the calendar in use, for dates 
using a Julian calendar after the invention of the Gregorian.

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