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Re: mutt/1296: iso date/time format by default



On Wed, Sep 28, 2005 at 07:20:36PM +0200, Rado S wrote:
> It need not be a match for everyone, but a suitable default for a
> majority.
>  My intention to ignite a discussion was to provide a best
> default for the majority of new users, meaning the chance of
> needing to change it is minimal for newbies.

While it would be nearly impossible to accumulate such statistics, I
think it would be interesting to look at the demographics of Mutt
usage... ;-)

> As non-US-native (majority) I consider 24h time-format as best
> choice.  As human (majority, too ;) I consider the
> month-abbreviation as preferred over numbers only date-format,
> because of potential confusion by numbers only: it's hard to tell
> which part the month is, it's still too often used ambiguously.

Well, I have been called weird and eccentric by many of my countrymen,
but as a US native, I also find the 24hr clock much less likely to
cause confusion, most especially as pertains to the 12 o'clock
hours...  Perhaps I am more worldly than many of my countrymen.  ;-)
On the other hand, I really don't see this as a big issue, and I'm
inclined to think that both the time and the date ought to be
formatted in accordance with the user's locale settings.  Having not
myself written much code with i18n in mind, I admit I'm not sure what
the implications for Mutt code would be...

> > > I way prefer an English attribution perfect for English guys, and
> > > configurable for others.
> > 
> > Why English? Is English the laguage that is the most spoken?
> 
> Maybe not by population, but when it comes to international
> exchange, English is the way for non-similar language speakers.

Indeed.  I have recently traveled in Asia, and my experience was that
even in Asian countries, when Asian people speak dissimilar languages,
they resort to speaking English.  This seems to be most especially
true of the smaller east-Asian countries, excepting Japan.  My
experiences in Japan suggest that a much smaller percentage of
Japanese people speak English, or at least if they do, they don't want
you to know that they do.  =8^)

But, here again, I'm inclined to think that each translation of Mutt
should provide a default attribution in the native language, which is
more intuitive for all international users, and also allows for
differences in cultural greetings, etc.  

I should also mention that I seem to have missed the beginning of this
discussion, so if my comments seem out of place, my apologies.  You
can go back to your regularly scheduled programming now.  :)

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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