Things that make you go "Hmmmm…"

[axn]

Originally Posted by Nick

Yes, folks, you read it first on org.mersenneforum.www!

This doesn't sort the expected way. Neither does "www.mersenneforum.org", for that matter.

And namespaces in certain programming languages are implemented this way!

[retina]

Originally Posted by axn

This doesn't sort the expected way. Neither does "www.mersenneforum.org", for that matter.

What way are you expecting?

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Nick

Yes, folks, you read it first on org.mersenneforum.www!

There was a time when my email address was pcl@uk.ac.ox.robots

[axn]

Originally Posted by retina

What way are you expecting?

Something like...

ftp.mersenneforum.com
www.mersenneforum.com
ftp.mersenneforum.org
www.mersenneforum.org
ftp.yahoo.com
www.yahoo.com
ftp.yahoo.org
www.yahoo.org

[retina]

Originally Posted by axn

Something like...

ftp.mersenneforum.com
www.mersenneforum.com
ftp.mersenneforum.org
www.mersenneforum.org
ftp.yahoo.com
www.yahoo.com
ftp.yahoo.org
www.yahoo.org

I had never thought of website domain names to be an ordered list. But anyhow, it is not guaranteed that the same domain name with a different TLD belongs to the same entity.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

I have to say that the logic of 'y-m-d' date order is indisputable. They sort in the expected "correct" order, on computers, for starters.

Don't expect the US to give up on that date order, any more than on the English system of weights and measures..

In giving dates in dd-mm-yy(yy) format, the units proceed from smaller to larger. But this is merely convention -- preference or custom -- not "logic." Giving the date as yy(yy)-mm-dd would be just as "logical." One could also give a date according to the lexicographic ordering of the phrases for the day of the week, the month, and the year. That too would be "logical," but not very practical.

And there are several different calendars in current use. The Gregorian calendar is perhaps the most widely used, certainly so in commerce. The names of the months in the Gregorian calendar reflect a change from the old Roman calendar, when the new year was deemed to begin with Spring, and winter wasn't on the calendar. That's why the numerical prefixes for the months September to December indicate two less than the number of the month in succeeding calendars, up until the Gregorian.

With the notable exception of the Islamic calendar, adjustments have been devised for modern calendars to keep them synchronized with the seasons. This too is convention, not "logic."

Here in the good old U-S-of-A, it is customary to give dates in month-day-year format. This is reflected in, for example, President Roosevelt's address to Congress the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor: "Yesterday, December seventh, nineteen forty-one,..." It may seem unsatisfactory in that the units don't proceed according to size, but at least it is consistent. But there is a conspicuous exception to this custom in a commonly-used name for the national holiday commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence -- the Fourth of July.

As to weights and measures, it may be noteworthy that after France mandated use the metric system, it caused a lot of confusion, because people in every locality also kept using their customary systems. France finally had to mandate the exclusive use of the metric system. Enacting that sort of measure would be difficult here in the USA.

There is also a practical difficulty now which did not exist -- or at least, not to nearly as large a degree -- in the mid-Nineteenth Century: just think of the amount of machinery, infrastructure, and construction in place, which was designed and built under the English system -- diameters of pipes, screws, nuts and bolts. Threads per inch. And on and on. You can't just wave a wand and change all of that stuff. If you want to have the metric system used exclusively here, you need to deal with that "inertia" problem.

[retina]

The default *nix "date" command defies all logic.

~ date
Tue 15 Nov 12:34:56 +00 2016

Try to sort that in some logical way!

At least it doesn't use the AM/PM thing. That would've made it even worse.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by retina

The default *nix "date" command defies all logic.

~ date
Tue 15 Nov 12:34:56 +00 2016

Try to sort that in some logical way!

At least it doesn't use the AM/PM thing. That would've made it even worse.

Convert to the Julian day, and thence Julian date (Julian day number plus fraction of day).

I note that the date you give is almost two years ago. Perhaps your machine decided it did not want to go on, a week after the 2016 election?

[retina]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Convert to the Julian day, and thence Julian date (Julian day number plus fraction of day).

There are lots of alternative formats. And picking any of them would probably have been preferred to the one that date outputs. What were they thinking?

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

I note that the date you give is almost two years ago. Perhaps your machine decided it did not want to go on, a week after the 2016 election?

Other countries exist. It's a long story to explain the ~2yr delay, but it has nothing to do with the election process in a country that uses those crazy date formats.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by retina

There are lots of alternative formats. And picking any of them would probably have been preferred to the one that date outputs. What were they thinking?

That's a question best addressed to the people who first wrote the code.

(Looks at manual) Hmm. For purposes of sorting dates since January 1, 1970 00:00 UTC, it appears that

date -j -f "%a %b %d %T %Z %Y" "`date`" "+%s"

fills the bill. It converts the date to the number of seconds since that time.

Other countries exist. It's a long story to explain the ~2yr delay, but it has nothing to do with the election process in a country that uses those crazy date formats.

Hmm. It's a curious thing, that date being off by almost two years. (I am discounting the possibility that might prompt the reply, "Pull the other one. It's got bells on it.")

The two obvious possibilities for how it could have got that way are, (1) it's deliberately set that way (why it would be, I have no idea), or (2) for some reason, "time stopped" on that computer for almost two years -- perhaps it was powered down for that long and the date stayed where it was when the plug got pulled; and after power was restored, time resumed at that point, and the date was never reset. Why it would not have been reset is something I can't fathom. Perhaps resetting it would simply upset too many apple carts...

[retina]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

(Looks at manual) Hmm. For purposes of sorting dates since January 1, 1970 00:00 UTC, it appears that

date -j -f "%a %b %d %T %Z %Y" "`date`" "+%s"

fills the bill. It converts the date to the number of seconds since that time.

Yes indeed. That is so much easier than having a default do that for us.

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Hmm. It's a curious thing, that date being off by almost two years. (I am discounting the possibility that might prompt the reply, "Pull the other one. It's got bells on it.")

The two obvious possibilities for how it could have got that way are, (1) it's deliberately set that way (why it would be, I have no idea), or (2) for some reason, "time stopped" on that computer for almost two years -- perhaps it was powered down for that long and the date stayed where it was when the plug got pulled; and after power was restored, time resumed at that point, and the date was never reset. Why it would not have been reset is something I can't fathom. Perhaps resetting it would simply upset too many apple carts...

Hehe, well then perhaps I'll just let you speculate. There is a good reason actually.