Hi,

 * Is anyone interested in helping sort out Date and Time
   functionality for the P5EE?

I know that the date/time processing stuff in Perl is all over the
place.  I know that excellent modules have been written, but that
they are often overlapping, written in different styles, and
sometimes inconsistent.

I also know that a mailing list was established which was devoted
to trying to sort these inconsistencies out.

   http://lists.perl.org/showlist.cgi?name=datetime
   http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/

To my knowledge, they have established a forum for discussing ideas
but have never come up with a unified API.

The (abortive? abandoned? successful?) Perl SDK project at

   http://lists.perl.org/showlist.cgi?name=perl-sdk
   http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
   http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg00233.html
   
considered the following CPAN modules for inclusion in the SDK

   Date::Calc
   Date::Manip
   Time::HiRes
   Class::Date
   Date::Format
   Date::Parse
   HTTP::Date

and selected the first three.

Ironically, although the first three are powerful, they appear to
me to be a mishmash of programming styles.
I vastly prefer the simplicity of Graham Barr's Date::Parse and
Date::Format as a set of utility functions, whereas Class::Date
seems like a good OO implementation of a "date" class.

Sooner or later, we are going to need date and time support in 
P5EE. (I already have utility code in various places... doesn't
everyone!)  I suggest the following target namespace for date
and time classes.

For utility code (i.e. code with only static methods or imported
for functional use)

   P5EE::Util::DateTime

or if we implemented OO date, time, and datetime classes, I
recommend

   P5EE::Lang::Date
   P5EE::Lang::Datetime
   P5EE::Lang::Time

 * Is anyone interested in helping sort out Date and Time
   functionality for the P5EE?

I would imagine this would involve 

 * joining the [EMAIL PROTECTED] list,
 * discussing the issue,
 * perhaps recruiting some people from there,
 * pulling together some code,
 * working with a P5EEx Coordinating Developer,
 * depositing it their P5EEx::Color namespace, and
 * submitting it for review to the list.

Any takers?

If not, I (and I imagine others) will do this in a piecemeal way
as and when are forced to because we need the functionality.

Stephen


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