Re: The Emacs Calculator and calendar

[Achim Gratz]

Richard Stallman writes:
>     I would say it even more strongly: the Unix cal and the Emacs calc are
>     foolish chimeras; there
>     were hundreds of different dates of adoption of the Gregorian calendar,
>     stretching almost 400 years.
>     Emacs calendar does the only sane thing.
>
> I am not convinced.  Nobody used the Gregorian calendar in 1400,
> so displaying dates from that year in Gregorian is an anachronism.

That argument doesn't have legs to stand on, IMHO.  A user of Emacs
asking for a date that far back can only make sense of it from the
current frame of reference.  If it matters what calendar (if any
calendar at all, really) that hypothetical somebody back then would have
used then there's a lot more work to do to find a suitable calendar than
simply saying that our current calendar didn't exist back then.  Picking
a random calendar that did exist somewhere at that time isn't going to
cut it.  So the only sane default is still _our_ calendar.


Regards,
Achim.
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