Re: Ada95 calendar package question

[Philip Anderson <phil.anderson@amsjv.com>]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> Well, its been discussed here before. Like I said, there is a certain amount
> of arbitrariness to it - make Wednesday be the first day if you like - but I
> don't think it is inaccurate to point out that *historically*, Sunday is the
> first day of the week and any other convention is ignoring a lot of history.
> One can ignore history at one's own risk. :-)

No, the history was fine.  But to jump from there to saying "most
calendars ..." was dangerous; saying "most" in an international,
multicultural, multidisciplinary forum like this often is :-)


> Odd that it was Roman calendars (European) that pretty much set Sunday as
> the first day of the week and now the Europeans don't use this convention
> while the US still does. When was it Europe decided to pitch their own
> standard?

I don't know.  After the French Revolution perhaps?  But the ISO
standard can no doubt be dated.

My (British English) dictionary defines Sunday as the first day of the
week and I still think of it that way if asked (and so do the Seventh
Day Adventists obviously); but calendars, diaries and week-numbering
here all start with a Monday.  Timetables too use 1-7 stgarting from
Monday.  Maybe we should use 0-6, so Sunday is the first day, but Monday
is Day 1?

Personally I find it much more convenient to be able to write a weekend
event across two consecutive boxes than at the end of one row and the
beginning of the next.  But are Americans allowed to include Sunday in a
"weekend"? :-)


-- 
hwyl/cheers,
Philip Anderson
Alenia Marconi Systems
Cwmbr�n, Cymru/Wales