Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max
* Nicolas Rachinsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 20.44 +0100]:
[...SNIP...]
> > Now it works, I have to use %Z instead of %z.
> > attribution="* %f [%{%Y-%m-%e %k:%M:%S %Z}]:"
>
> Stupid me, of course I want
> attribution="* %f [%{%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z}]:"
>
> Nicolas (who should go to bed now, and get rid of his cold)
Why not bring a laptop and answer some really important e-mails?
;-)
--
Martin Karlsson
I welcome mail encrypted with PGP/GPG.
See headers for my public key.
msg25522/pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max
* Nicolas Rachinsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 20:38:15 +0100]:
> * Martin Karlsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 20:26:29 +0100]:
> > * Nicolas Rachinsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 20.02 +0100]:
> > > * Phil Gregory <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 12:43:53 +]:
> > > I tried:
> > > attribution="* %f [%{%Y-%m-%e %k:%M:%S %z}]:"
> >
> > Why not set the date-part in $date_format, like so:
> >
> > set attribution="* %n <%a> [%d]:"
> >
> > and
> >
> > set date_format="%Y-%m-%d %H.%M %Z"
>
> Good idea.
>
> Now it works, I have to use %Z instead of %z.
> attribution="* %f [%{%Y-%m-%e %k:%M:%S %Z}]:"
Stupid me, of course I want
attribution="* %f [%{%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z}]:"
Nicolas (who should go to bed now, and get rid of his cold)
Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max
* Martin Karlsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 20:26:29 +0100]:
> * Nicolas Rachinsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 20.02 +0100]:
> > * Phil Gregory <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 12:43:53 +]:
> > I tried:
> > attribution="* %f [%{%Y-%m-%e %k:%M:%S %z}]:"
>
> Why not set the date-part in $date_format, like so:
>
> set attribution="* %n <%a> [%d]:"
>
> and
>
> set date_format="%Y-%m-%d %H.%M %Z"
Good idea.
Now it works, I have to use %Z instead of %z.
attribution="* %f [%{%Y-%m-%e %k:%M:%S %Z}]:"
I don't know why, but now it works.
Thanks.
Nicolas
Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max
* Nicolas Rachinsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 20.02 +0100]:
> * Phil Gregory <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 12:43:53 +]:
> I tried:
> attribution="* %f [%{%Y-%m-%e %k:%M:%S %z}]:"
Why not set the date-part in $date_format, like so:
set attribution="* %n <%a> [%d]:"
and
set date_format="%Y-%m-%d %H.%M %Z"
--
Martin Karlsson
I welcome mail encrypted with PGP/GPG.
See headers for my public key.
msg25518/pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max
* Phil Gregory <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-14 12:43:53 +]:
> * John Buttery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-13 06:01 -0600]:
> > Oh, I definitely agree that the ISO format is the way to go. Although
> > I would change it a bit since technically the hyphens (-) are
> > unnecessary due to the fields being fixed-length, but that's a bigger
> > nitpick than even I am willing to seriously make.
>
> Well, the ISO spec does state that the hyphens are optional.
> "2001-03-13 06:01" and "20010313T0601" are equivalent in terms of ISO
> 8601, but I know which one I'd rather read.
>
> And, while we're on the topic, you can see my preferred attribution line.
> It's a modified Sven because I prefer the ISO 8601 format and because time
> zone is often useful in placing when a message was sent. Most (if not
> all) of the mailing lists I'm on span multiple time zones.
Just a stupid question, I tried to copy your attribution, but I
failed. I tried:
attribution="* %f [%{%Y-%m-%e %k:%M:%S %z}]:"
But you can see the result above :-( can you post your attribution
line, please.
Thanks
Nicolas
Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max
* John Buttery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-03-13 06:01 -0600]: > Oh, I definitely agree that the ISO format is the way to go. Although > I would change it a bit since technically the hyphens (-) are > unnecessary due to the fields being fixed-length, but that's a bigger > nitpick than even I am willing to seriously make. Well, the ISO spec does state that the hyphens are optional. "2001-03-13 06:01" and "20010313T0601" are equivalent in terms of ISO 8601, but I know which one I'd rather read. And, while we're on the topic, you can see my preferred attribution line. It's a modified Sven because I prefer the ISO 8601 format and because time zone is often useful in placing when a message was sent. Most (if not all) of the mailing lists I'm on span multiple time zones. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] / DNRC / UMBC-LUG: http://lug.umbc.edu PGP: ID: D8C75CF5 print: 0A7D B3AD 2D10 1099 7649 AB64 04C2 05A6 --- -- Hello . . . my name is Inigo Montoya; you killed my father . . . prepare to die. . . . --- --
Re: ISO 8601 (was Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max)
On Wed, 13 Mar 2002, 15:05, Gary Johnson wrote: > > 2002-01-02 > > > > If we know this is ISO, then obviously it's "January 2, 2002". But if > > we're not _sure_ it's ISO, then it could be "February 1, 2002". > Nah. Not even someone who had never even _heard_ of ISO would ever > write -DD-MM. For one thing, only an analytic would put the year > first, and an analytic would follow that by the month, then the day. It makes me wonder why America uses MM/DD/ then? It's the same thing :) In log files I prefer -MM-DD and in general DD-MM-YYY works fine.. Just my EUR0,02... (not EUR0.02 ;-) Ray --
Re: ISO 8601 (was Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max)
On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 08:58:57AM -0600, John Buttery wrote: > On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 09:35:29AM -0500, "N. Thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 06:01:28AM -0600, John Buttery wrote: > > > >> That being said, in practice it is probably a good bet 9 times out of > >> 10 that if you see a date like -xx-xx it is probaby -MM-DD... > > > >Interesting... In what situation would -XX-XX ever be confused with > >-DD-MM instead of -MM-DD? > > Like I said, if the person didn't know you were using ISO format: > > 2002-01-02 > > If we know this is ISO, then obviously it's "January 2, 2002". But if > we're not _sure_ it's ISO, then it could be "February 1, 2002". Nah. Not even someone who had never even _heard_ of ISO would ever write -DD-MM. For one thing, only an analytic would put the year first, and an analytic would follow that by the month, then the day. Gary -- Gary Johnson | Agilent Technologies [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Spokane, Washington, USA http://www.spocom.com/users/gjohnson/mutt/ |
Re: ISO 8601 (was Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max)
On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 09:35:29AM -0500, "N. Thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 06:01:28AM -0600, John Buttery wrote: > >> That being said, in practice it is probably a good bet 9 times out of >> 10 that if you see a date like -xx-xx it is probaby -MM-DD... > >Interesting... In what situation would -XX-XX ever be confused with >-DD-MM instead of -MM-DD? Like I said, if the person didn't know you were using ISO format: 2002-01-02 If we know this is ISO, then obviously it's "January 2, 2002". But if we're not _sure_ it's ISO, then it could be "February 1, 2002". Please reply to either the list or me personally, not both (preferably to the list unless it's a personal matter). Not a flame, just a reminder. :) -- John Buttery (Web page temporarily unavailable) msg25422/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
ISO 8601 (was Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max)
On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 06:01:28AM -0600, John Buttery wrote: > That being said, in practice it is probably a good bet 9 times out of > 10 that if you see a date like -xx-xx it is probaby -MM-DD... Interesting... In what situation would -XX-XX ever be confused with -DD-MM instead of -MM-DD? noble -- N. Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~nthomas Etiamsi occiderit me, in ipso sperabo
Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max
On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 12:34:10PM +0100, Gerhard Häring <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Le 13/03/02 à 05:20, John Buttery écrivit: >> Even the ISO format is somewhat lacking in this regard, since although >> it is ambiguous in a vacuum, the fact is that people may not _know_ you >> are using that format and so there is still ambiguity, although not a >> failing of the format itself. > >That's true of any representation of information. I personally am a >great fan of ISO date format. Oh, I definitely agree that the ISO format is the way to go. Although I would change it a bit since technically the hyphens (-) are unnecessary due to the fields being fixed-length, but that's a bigger nitpick than even I am willing to seriously make. I was just saying that, unfortunately, the ISO format is only unambiguous if the parser (in this case, a human email recipient/reader) knows that that's the format being used. I certainly think that ISO dates should be used in headers, which are governed by RFC standards...but the trouble is that in-message quoting attributions aren't, so it's anybody's guess what format is being used. That being said, in practice it is probably a good bet 9 times out of 10 that if you see a date like -xx-xx it is probaby -MM-DD... >> It therefore follows that the only option out of the three that does >> the job without any ambiguity at all is the one with an alpha data. >> Yes, it's culturally biased, > >Indeed it is very biased. What if I used "Am 2. Pfinsta nach Mariä >Himmelfahrt, um 3/4 12", which was perfectly understandable in Bavaria >50 years ago, but even nowadays most Bavarian people will wonder which >date that is. Of course, everybody outside Bavaria will probably make no >sense at all of it. You do have a point, but my response is that the attribution that Simon suggested/used, and that I am agreeing with, is much less culturally biased than your example, and furthermore only to the point necessary to eliminate ambiguity. If you or anyone else has a suggestion of a way to represent a date without cultural bias that fits the following parameters, by all means let me know and I will switch to it: 1) Must use only "standard" formats (no language-specific constructs 2) Must specify the full date to a precision of 1 second with no ambiguity 3) Must not rely on "accepted standards" or "prior agreement" Having said that, it does appear that we have collectively identified an element of email that needs discussing and standardizing. If one were going to submit some kind of "mini-RFC" for attribution lines, how would one go about it? -- John Buttery (Web page temporarily unavailable) msg25396/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max
Le 13/03/02 à 05:20, John Buttery écrivit:
> Even the ISO format is somewhat lacking in this regard, since although
> it is ambiguous in a vacuum, the fact is that people may not _know_ you
> are using that format and so there is still ambiguity, although not a
> failing of the format itself.
That's true of any representation of information. I personally am a
great fan of ISO date format.
> It therefore follows that the only option out of the three that does
> the job without any ambiguity at all is the one with an alpha data.
> Yes, it's culturally biased,
Indeed it is very biased. What if I used "Am 2. Pfinsta nach Mariä
Himmelfahrt, um 3/4 12", which was perfectly understandable in Bavaria
50 years ago, but even nowadays most Bavarian people will wonder which
date that is. Of course, everybody outside Bavaria will probably make no
sense at all of it.
Gerhard
--
mail: gerhard bigfoot de registered Linux user #64239
web:http://www.cs.fhm.edu/~ifw00065/OpenPGP public key id AD24C930
public key fingerprint: 3FCC 8700 3012 0A9E B0C9 3667 814B 9CAA AD24 C930
reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))
msg25395/pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max
On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 11:36:22AM +0100, Sven Guckes wrote: >* Simon White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-Maerz-13 09:04]: >> Post 1999 you are adding to this confusion since the 2 >> digit year could also be interpreted as a month for the >> next 10 years, and as a day for the next 29... and yymmdd, >> yyddmm, mmddyy and ddmmyy are all configurations that are >> parsed by the brain before concluding properly. > >blah. > >Sven OK, I wasn't going to be anal and join this thread, but I have to jump in on this one. Simon's point deserves more than a "blah", and the fact that you went in and edited his attribution lines with little digs (one of which I removed) proves, to me anyway, that you're not looking at this objectively. Anyway, I can see from the thread that you can take it as well as dish it out, so I'll just be blunt: your date format sucks. OK, so if we don't want your info fine...well, that would be a valid argument except that this whole thread is about "usability" of attribution lines, not RFC-compliance -- since afaik there is no RFC for this and even if there were, that's not what we're talking about. I agree with you that attribution lines should include name/email/date info now that you mention it and I'll be modifying my config accordingly (as I did when David T-G informed me that the actual required quote string is ">" and not "> " which mutt uses by default, shame on mutt). From a "compliance" standpoint, your date is fine...by virtue of the simple fact that there is no standard to comply with. From a usability standpoint, well, it gets the big bah. None of the digit pairs is distinguishable from the others. Even if you forego machine parseability and assume that 02 is 2002, there's still no way to tell which of the other pairs is the month and which is the day, if the day is below 13. Even the ISO format is somewhat lacking in this regard, since although it is ambiguous in a vacuum, the fact is that people may not _know_ you are using that format and so there is still ambiguity, although not a failing of the format itself. It therefore follows that the only option out of the three that does the job without any ambiguity at all is the one with an alpha data. Yes, it's culturally biased, but I value that less than usability. 150 years from now someone will be able to look at Simon's attribution and know exactly what date it specifies (although they may need a dictionary). Yours will be almost impossible to discern within a few months, without relying on other people's attributions and/or entire other messages in a thread. Oh, and you can feel free to edit my attribution to John "blind elitist" Buttery in any replies... -- John Buttery (Web page temporarily unavailable) msg25394/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: attribution line with 80 chars max
* Simon "english rules" White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-Maerz-13 09:04]:
> 13-Mar-02 at 09:35, Sven Guckes ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote :
> > I started using "[yymmdd]" as a date indicator on my webpages
> > before Markus Kuhn wrote ISO-8601 (in 1995) - so sue me! ;-)
> Well, that's no excuse for not having become year 2000 compliant.
I'm not excusing my decision. If don't want my info
because of this compliancy bullshit, well, go away!
> The big problem with dates is the American vs. European
> format, so that 02/03 can be 2nd March (Europe) and 3rd
> February (US), which confuses the hell out of everyone.
> This is why I use the month name, which is in English
> but probably still better than being ambiguous.
> 99% of people I write to will understand
> the English month name abbreviations.
bwa-hahahahaha! *snort*
There are more people who will understand the Chinese
calendar than all the people who understand English -
and yet they won't give us such silly remarks. sheesh.
> Post 1999 you are adding to this confusion since the 2
> digit year could also be interpreted as a month for the
> next 10 years, and as a day for the next 29... and yymmdd,
> yyddmm, mmddyy and ddmmyy are all configurations that are
> parsed by the brain before concluding properly.
blah.
> On attributions: One problem with quoting the email address is
> that some people with ridiculously long emails can cause wrap.
exactly - people with *ridiculously* long emails.
> You're not far off, Sven, with your 13 characters and the
> extra dot for subdomain, and that's just the right hand side
> of the @ not including the TLD. If you had a middle name
> which you quoted in your real name you would cause wrap.
> You are thus contradicting yourself if you say it
> should stay on one line, considering the enormous
> length of some email addresses and real names.
this is so silly that I had to read it twice to believe it.
let's take a look at your attribution then:
13-Mar-02 at 09:35, Sven Guckes ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote :
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
that's 66 characters - 14 to go!
delete the time and the English words ("at" and "wrote")
and the length of the attributions drops below 50 here:
13-Mar-02 Sven Guckes ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
That'll leave some 30 characters for longer name and address. So there.
Here's another example for an attribution;
* Simon MiddleName White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
Now, if your name wasn't so long (ehem) there'd
be even more space for an even longer address.
80 characters is plenty! and, yes, there are silly people
with extra long addresses who will not fit in there.
but how many people are like that? I hope less than 1%.
anyway, all people who don't have an address with only one dot
in there address ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), well, they can get one!
Besides, I say that "date+time are optional", right?
This info can often be found in the MID and
thus in the In-Reply-To line, anyway.
Important is only name+address.
Alas, the default attribution with
mutt does not inlcude the address.
*sigh*
Sven
--
Sven Guckes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
LEARN TO http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/faq/attribution.html
ATTRIBUTE! http://learn.to/attribute
Summary: Name+Address of the author; short date+time optional.
