discuss: Thread: Re: Ok to use cvs keywords for date and revision?

"Robert B. Easter" wrote:
> 
> Is there a problem with using the cvs keywords for date and revision like:
> 
> <date>$Date$</date>
> <revnumber>$Revision$</revnumber>
> 
> which become like:
> 
> <date>$Date: 2001/01/04 13:41:40 $</date>
> <revnumber>$Revision: 1.2 $</revnumber>
> 

Oof.  We're going to get back into the whole date thing again.
I'm not actually sure we ecer solved it, did we?  Guylhem, want
to make an executive decision and be done with it?

In terms of revision, in some cases the CVS rev will work,  but
I have multiple files, of which some get updated outside
the main file that includes the revision number.  Maybe a
tag release number would work.

-Mark

-- 
Mark Komarinski - Senior Systems Engineer - VA Linux Systems
(cell)  978-697-2228
(email) ####@####.####

On Jan 4, 10:51am, Mark Komarinski wrote:
> Subject: Re: Ok to use cvs keywords for date and revision?
> "Robert B. Easter" wrote:
> >
> > Is there a problem with using the cvs keywords for date and
> > revision like:
> >
> > <date>$Date$</date>
> > <revnumber>$Revision$</revnumber>
> >
> > which become like:
> >
> > <date>$Date: 2001/01/04 13:41:40 $</date>
> > <revnumber>$Revision: 1.2 $</revnumber>
> >
>
> Oof.  We're going to get back into the whole date thing again.
> I'm not actually sure we ecer solved it, did we?  Guylhem, want
> to make an executive decision and be done with it?

I'm pretty sure we did decide (at least it seemed like a quorum)...
The ISO "YYYY-MM-DD" format should be used. The templates will
reflect that (soon) and we should put that in the LDP AG (if it
isn't already specified).

Please, no more beating that dead horse! :-}

> In terms of revision, in some cases the CVS rev will work,  but
> I have multiple files, of which some get updated outside
> the main file that includes the revision number.  Maybe a
> tag release number would work.

I'd rather see the version and date entered by the author instead
of taken from CVS. I think it  better reflects the intention of
the author (plus, if we need to re-submit to CVS or something of that
nature, at least the date/revision stays consistent)...imo.

r,


-- 
Greg Ferguson     - s/w engr / mtlhd         | gferg at sgi.com
SGI Tech Pubs     - http://techpubs.sgi.com/ |
Linux Doc Project - http://www.linuxdoc.org/ | gferg at metalab.unc.edu

> > The ISO "YYYY-MM-DD" format should be used. The templates will
> > reflect that (soon) and we should put that in the LDP AG (if it
> > isn't already specified).
> What does one use if they want to only use the month?  The advantage
> of spelling out the name of the month (and leaving out the day) is
> that it's easier to remember.  For example, August 2000 is much 

There are a few very good reasons why people came up with the ISO
8601 format for dates.

 - as there had not been any universally accepted standard for the
   order of the fields (e.g. US does MM/DD, whereas Canada uses
   DD/MM), some decision had to be made.
 - YYYY-MM-DD has the nice side effect, that you can sort it
   alphabetically and achieve chronological ordering.
 - while spelling out the names for months or for days of the week
   works well within a single locale, it causes utter confusion in
   an international environment.
 - all spelled out formats are less standardized and therefore
   harder to parse by a program. YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS,sss on the
   other hand is very easy to parse and still quite human readable
   (actually, if you want to be fully standards compliant, the
   " " should be a "T", but that makes it a little more difficult
   to read for humans).

So, if you feel that you absolutely must annotate your dates with some
locale specific format, then I won't be able to stop you; but whatever
you do, make sure that you always include the ISO string. The latter
is the only format that you can expect to be universally understood
anywhere that people use the Gregorian calendar.

For more information on ISO 8601, check out
http://hydracen.com/dx/y2k/iso8601.htm and
http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/miscdate.htm

Now, can we please put this discussion to rest?



Markus

-- 
Markus Gutschke                                Resonate, Inc.
3637 Fillmore Street #106                      385 Moffett Park Drive
San Francisco, CA 94123-1600                   Sunnyvale, CA 94089
+1-415-567-8449                                +1-408-548-5528
####@####.####                            ####@####.####

On Jan 15,  9:59am, David Lawyer wrote:
> Subject: Re: Ok to use cvs keywords for date and revision?
> > On Jan 4, 10:51am, Mark Komarinski wrote:
> > > Subject: Re: Ok to use cvs keywords for date and revision?
> > > "Robert B. Easter" wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jan 04, 2001 at 10:55:04AM -0500, Greg Ferguson wrote:
> > I'm pretty sure we did decide (at least it seemed like a quorum)...
> > The ISO "YYYY-MM-DD" format should be used. The templates will
> > reflect that (soon) and we should put that in the LDP AG (if it
> > isn't already specified).
>
> What does one use if they want to only use the month?

YYYY-MM-01 I suppose YYYY-MM would work, but I would need to verify.

> The advantage of spelling out the name of the month (and leaving
> out the day) is that it's easier to remember.  For example, August
> 2000 is much easier to read and remember than 2000-8-9.  Thus I'm
> opposed to the new way to list dates.  But if others insist, would
> it be feasible to list the date both ways?  Say: August 2000 (2000-8-9).
>  Or optionally: August 9, 2000 (2000-8-9).

The software we use to process can handle a multitude of formats.
YYYY-MM-DD is now the documented way of supplying the date.
"DD <month> YYYY" would be ok, but I would not make that widely
known :-)

--

btw, all discussions should move to ####@####.#### I'd urge
people to unsubscribe from the old list(s; ####@####.####
and use the new lists (http://www.linuxdoc.org/mailinfo.html). fyi.

r,

-- 
Greg Ferguson     - s/w engr / mtlhd         | gferg at sgi.com
SGI Tech Pubs     - http://techpubs.sgi.com/ |
Linux Doc Project - http://www.linuxdoc.org/ | gferg at metalab.unc.edu

I sent this to discuss but it bounced claiming that I hadn't
subscribed.  So I resubscribed and am resending it.

> On Jan 4, 10:51am, Mark Komarinski wrote:
> > Subject: Re: Ok to use cvs keywords for date and revision?
> > "Robert B. Easter" wrote:

On Thu, Jan 04, 2001 at 10:55:04AM -0500, Greg Ferguson wrote:
> I'm pretty sure we did decide (at least it seemed like a quorum)...
> The ISO "YYYY-MM-DD" format should be used. The templates will
> reflect that (soon) and we should put that in the LDP AG (if it
> isn't already specified).

What does one use if they want to only use the month?  The advantage
of spelling out the name of the month (and leaving out the day) is
that it's easier to remember.  For example, August 2000 is much easier
to read and remember than 2000-8-9.  Thus I'm opposed to the new way
to list dates.  But if others insist, would it be feasible to list the
date both ways?  Say: August 2000 (2000-8-9).  Or optionally: August
9, 2000 (2000-8-9).

While some people may remember months as numbers, most people think of
them by name.  That's why it's important to show the name of the
month.  The need for remembering the approximate date is so that one
may check for newer versions without needing to make a note of the
version number.  Also, one likes to know about how out-of-date the doc
is.

> Please, no more beating that dead horse! :-}
It's not dead yet :-)
			David Lawyer