[Developers] Calendar systems

[Peter Burns]

I've noticed this domain, which is currently being remodeled:
http://www.freebase.com/view/measurement_unit

It seems like you'd be working with pretty similar issues in both cases.
You could even model calendar formats and timezones as different datetime
measurement units.

Peter Burns

On 10/10/07, Kirrily Robert <skud at infotrope.net> wrote:
>
> On 10/11/07, Alec Flett <alecf at metaweb.com> wrote:
> > I have some experience with calendaring, etc, and I'd like to see MQL
> > get a better understanding of some calendaring concepts like timezone.
>
> >  From what I understand Kirrily you're pretty familiar with these issues
> > - I'm in support of importing as much of the raw standard calendar data
> > as we can (i.e. timezones and the like)
> >
> > Over time I think that we could get MQL to support a richer notion of
> > date/time but I think it's important to understand what we want to model
> > first...
>
> Jeff P's got some timezone stuff going on using the Olson timezone
> database, which I think will work out OK.  IIRC he did it on the
> sandbox, though, and it got wiped.
>
> My experience with calendar/time stuff dates back to 2001 or so, when
> I was involved in some speculative work towards a calendaring toolkit
> for Perl.  Then I found out how hard it was, and mostly since then
> I've gibbered and hidden under the desk whenever the topic shows up.
> t
>
> When it comes to modelling things, I think it's going to be historical
> and cross-cultural events that will show us what we need to do.  Yom
> Kippur is one example, but any date between 1582 and 1918 in various
> parts of the western world will also trip us, as not all countries had
> implemented the Gregorian calendar fixes at that time, and if
> something's claimed to have happened on the 1st of June in (eg.)
> France, it might be a different date in England.
>
> The thing about dates is that they don't work very well as ordinary FB
> types.  I mean, you could set up a type for "Hebrew date" or "French
> Revolutionary date" or whatever, but it would lack the validation and
> sorting intelligence that the system date/time type has, and sorting
> by date is something we seem to do pretty often (or at least I do).
>
> K.
>
>
> --
> Kirrily Robert
> skud at infotrope.net
> http://infotrope.net
> _______________________________________________
> Developers mailing list
> Developers at freebase.com
> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/developers
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.freebase.com/pipermail/developers/attachments/20071010/8f81da24/attachment-0001.htm