A minor niggle, perhaps...
> >and on DATE:
> >
> >> Well, I've had five ideas/suggestions from people for schemes for my
> >> qualifiers list for this element so far:
> >
> >[...]
> >
> >> * FGDC
> >> Date conforms to the date formats described in the FGDC. For
> >> example 19960831.
> >
> >
> >The nice thing about this one is that it is simple and it collates
> >numerically. RFC-822 dating is more complex to parse, but since its so
> >common, maybe this is not a problem. Anyone else...?
>
> I think that without a scheme being specified, we are going to see a LOT
> of dates of the form:
> <META Name="Date" Content="12/25/96">.
>
> This is, of course, a nightmare from the internationalization standpoint
> since we in the US write 12/25/96 and the rest of the world writes
> 25/12/96. There is also the 2 vs. 4 digit year ID problem. BUT, we are
> going to see a LOT of these in hand-written descriptions.
>
> I think that we cannot assume a safe default here, but can *strongly
> recommend* one approach. As Stu points out, FGDC is nice and simple
> and sorts easily. The GUIDE should recommend
> <META Name="Date" Content="(scheme=FGDC) 19961225">
> People attempting to parse dates when a scheme is not specified
> should look for punctuation characters and shudder in horror if any are
> found. What they do after that is up to them. :-)
Yes, FGDC is a nice and fairly neat scheme. However, it deals rather
non-standardly with BC dates, with its recommendation for using 'bc'.
In temporally aware disciplines (like, for example, Archaeology),
'bc' is used to denote an UNCALIBRATED radiocarbon date, and may
differ from a calendar date ('BC') by several decades -- or even
centuries.
Although I realise that this doesn't affect most users, with their
need to record dates only in the '80s, '90s and early 2000s, it's a
little niggle to be aware of in any recommendation for FGDC as the
default...
Paul
-----------
Paul Miller
Graphics & GIS Advisor, University Computing Service
University of Newcastle, Claremont Tower, Claremont Road, Newcastle
upon Tyne NE1 7RU. tel (0191) 222 8212/8039, fax (0191) 222 8765
e-mail [log in to unmask] WWW http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~napm1/
[log in to unmask] http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~ngraphic/
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