On Wed, 6 Jul 2005, Juerd wrote:
I think the problem one has is much bigger even if a day *number* is
ever displayed. Then beginning with 1 because that's where most humans
begin counting, is wrong. It's a technical thing, and that should be
kept as simple as possible, and as technical as possible, for easier
compatibility with existing technical things.
Calling Sunday 1 and not having a 0 would certainly upset and offend me.
My weeks begin on Mondays, as do most people's weeks here. At the same
time, I can accept any day as the first day if that first day is 0,
because 0 is technical and internal anyway, not meant for humans.
I'm sure lots of people would want an index 1 to be Sunday, if there is
no index 0. This all is solved simply by NOT skipping 0, and using an
arbitrarily chosen day for the first. Or, well, for compatibility,
Sunday :)
Computers and Perl count from 0. People count from 1. If something
begins at 1, it is expected to be a people's thing. And with week days,
this just doesn't work, as not everyone's week starts at the same day.
On reflection, I realized it doesn't matter too much to me. In the end,
I'm likely to need a higher-level interface than this to do something
interesting (like print a day _name_ or calculate the second Sunday of the
month) and that interface will just use the information Perl's builtins
give it.
-dave
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