On 2008-08-04 14:35 Dr J R Stockton wrote:
In comp.lang.java message <g7**********@aioe.org>, Mon, 4 Aug 2008
11:17:45, Eustace <em*@email.composted:
Sig:
>Date Calculator with all-purpose JS code
http://www.geocities.com/emfril/js/datecalc.html
Does it handle Ordinal Date, ISO Week Number, Julian/Gregorian, and
Easter Sunday? How about the Hebrew, Islamic, etc., calendars? Without
all of those, and more, it cannot be accurately described as all-
purpose.
Dear Dr. Stockton.
We have crossed paths again. I most certainly do not intend to compete
with your unrivaled JavaScript subroutines. But mine have been useful
for some who still program in outdated languages (the owner of a QBasic
website was most thankful for sending him my subroutines, another
programmer once thanked me for helping him get a job - before 2000), and
I still prefer them as simpler when location, daylight savings time,
other calendars, and other considerations would unnecessarily complicate
the calculations.
One might argue, though, that the description "all-purpose JS code" is
not the best I could choose. I just intended it to mean that it is for
general, common, purposes and not for special ones - an all-purpose
product is not expected to be the best in any particular case, but than
your methods are an exception to that rule, being both "all-purpose" and
thorough. "Generic" might have been a better choice in my case, meaning
that it can be used in all computing languages, including those that do
not include a Date function. Anyway, I include occasionally the
signature with the description hoping to attract the curiosity of
someone who might find them useful for his/her purposes.
I certainly sense a feeling of jealousy, or maybe rather a kind of
competitiveness on your part, and I would like to express my sincere
gratitude for the deep sense of satisfaction that it has provided me. I
may insist that the variable name "epoch" would better apply to a 400
year period, and that the counting would more rationally start with year
1CE rather than 1970CE, but now such questions are of course of purely
academic interest; the alternate options have been established, and we
know very well that when such things get established it is very
difficult to change them. And anyway, personally I would be much more
interested to see the US adopt the metric system in my lifetime than to
have my opinions on the date functions prevail.
Cheers,
Eustace
--
It ain't THAT, babe! - A radical reinterpretation
http://www.geocities.com/itaintme_babe/itaintme.html