I've written a nice Date Time class library to get a grip on Daylight Saving Time bugs. It is mostly a wrapper around the existing stuff from #include <time.h>, but the idea is to force the user to forget about those, and be forced to think what timezone he is talking about. (I have a class TZone, which user MUST supply if he want to construct a date, or if he want to break it down into readable fields). and also the idea is to make clear what the isdst flag semantics are, etc. I am putting the finishing touches, and I now decide on a few trivial questions (which seem inportant anyhoow..) (1) I decided to have the MONTH and the WeekDay 1-based (in struct tm they start at zero). I guess there are arguments for both, but I didn't like the inconsistency between weekday (0-6) and monthday (1-31). also, if month is (0-11) I have to add 1 before printing, because users are definitely used to december as month 12, not month 11. so my question is.... now that I decided that days are niumbere 1 to 7, what is day 1 ??? is it Sunday, or Monday? what is the Right Thing to do? regards, Christoph
Christoph Bugel wrote on 2000-10-01 08:08 UTC:
now that I decided that days are niumbere 1 to 7, what is day 1 ??? is it Sunday, or Monday? what is the Right Thing to do?
ISO 8601: Monday=1, Sunday=7 C: Sunday=0, Saturday=6 So there is at least agreement that Moday to Saturday have the numbers 1-6, only the Sunday can choose to be the first or last day of the week. ISO 8601 establishes a week numbering scheme that is used at least in many European countries widely for industrial planning (and more recently also for naming weekly computer logfiles). Today week 40 of 2000 started. The ISO week numbering scheme starts the week on Monday and since you decided anyway to start at 1, then I would suggest the ISO convention is the way to go. For details, please read http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html There is no real "Right Thing" anyway, because weeks and week days are a very arbitrary cultural convention that seems not to be based on any more fundamental reasons. Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
IF you use the Gregorian calendar, the first day of the week is Monday, Sunday being the "sabbath" or day of rest = end of the week. Also the Gregorian calendar, as in use, utilizes "midnight" as the time for change of day. In the Hebraic calendar , using the Gregorian calendar as a reference, the sabbath=last day or end of a week, starts with sunset Friday. Within various Muslim calendars,using Gregorian calendar reference, the day of rest =end of the week,can be Thursday, etc. Best we stick with (1) Gregorian calendar referencing, (2) change of one day to another occurs at midnight "tz" time,and 1st day of the week is Monday. regards - Jake Knoppers
-----Original Message----- From: Antoine Leca [mailto:Antoine.Leca@renault.fr] Sent: October 2, 2000 1:44 PM To: TZ Subject: Re: week starts at Sunday or Monday??
Christoph Bugel wrote:
so my question is.... now that I decided that days are niumbere 1 to 7, what is day 1 ??? is it Sunday, or Monday?
Culturally dependent.
what is the Right Thing to do?
Ask the user. In other words, to NOT bound this in the code you are writing.
Antoine
Infoman Inc. said:
IF you use the Gregorian calendar, the first day of the week is Monday, Sunday being the "sabbath" or day of rest = end of the week.
Actually Saturday was the sabbath. Sunday is the first day of the week. -- Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <clive@demon.net> | Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 Internet Expert | Home: <clive@davros.org> | Fax: +44 20 8371 1037 Demon Internet | WWW: http://www.davros.org | DFax: +44 20 8371 4037 Thus plc | | Mobile: +44 7973 377646
"and on the seventh day, ye shall rest" for Gregorian calendar =Sunday, for Hebraic, Seventh Day Adventists (and others) = Saturday, etc. best regards - Jake
-----Original Message----- From: Clive D.W. Feather [mailto:clive@demon.net] Sent: October 3, 2000 10:43 AM To: Infoman Inc. Cc: Antoine Leca; TZ Subject: Re: week starts at Sunday or Monday??
Infoman Inc. said:
IF you use the Gregorian calendar, the first day of the week is Monday, Sunday being the "sabbath" or day of rest = end of the week.
Actually Saturday was the sabbath. Sunday is the first day of the week.
-- Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <clive@demon.net> | Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 Internet Expert | Home: <clive@davros.org> | Fax: +44 20 8371 1037 Demon Internet | WWW: http://www.davros.org | DFax: +44 20 8371 4037 Thus plc | | Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Infoman Inc. said:
"and on the seventh day, ye shall rest" for Gregorian calendar =Sunday, for Hebraic, Seventh Day Adventists (and others) = Saturday, etc.
Luke: 024:001 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. 024:002 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. 024:003 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. Clearly the resurrection - which was on a Sunday - was on the first day of the week. [From context it's clear that the cruxifiction was the day before the sabbath, which makes it a Friday.] -- Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <clive@demon.net> | Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 Internet Expert | Home: <clive@davros.org> | Fax: +44 20 8371 1037 Demon Internet | WWW: http://www.davros.org | DFax: +44 20 8371 4037 Thus plc | | Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Quoth Clive D.W. Feather on Wed, Oct 04, 2000:
Clearly the resurrection - which was on a Sunday - was on the first day of the week.
In Hebrew, week days don't have names (except Sabbath). They're just numbered, so "First day of the week" means Sunday, no other interpretation possible. Now, these are Jewish weeks; it does not answer the question whether Christian weeks start on Sunday or Monday. Remember that when the New Testament was written Christianity did not exist as we know it, and Julian calendar was not invented yet (let alone Gregorian). Vadik. -- To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a test load.
Vadim Vygonets said:
In Hebrew, week days don't have names (except Sabbath). They're just numbered, so "First day of the week" means Sunday, no other interpretation possible. Now, these are Jewish weeks; it does not answer the question whether Christian weeks start on Sunday or Monday.
It does as far as I'm concerned.
Remember that when the New Testament was written Christianity did not exist as we know it, and Julian calendar was not invented yet (let alone Gregorian).
Caius Julius Caesar would have been surprised to hear that. -- Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <clive@demon.net> | Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 Internet Expert | Home: <clive@davros.org> | Fax: +44 20 8371 1037 Demon Internet | WWW: http://www.davros.org | DFax: +44 20 8371 4037 Thus plc | | Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Quoth Clive D.W. Feather on Wed, Oct 04, 2000:
Vadim Vygonets said:
In Hebrew, week days don't have names (except Sabbath). They're just numbered, so "First day of the week" means Sunday, no other interpretation possible. Now, these are Jewish weeks; it does not answer the question whether Christian weeks start on Sunday or Monday.
It does as far as I'm concerned.
How? Christian culture did not exist yet, so Luke used the wording which could be understood by the people who lived in the surrounding environment, i.e., Jews. And Romans, but I have no idea what kind of weeks Romans had, and what was the first day of the Roman week. Does anybody know when Christians changed their rest day from Saturday to Sunday? References from that time could help. The biggest question, of course, is whether it's Christian weeks we're discussing here...
Remember that when the New Testament was written Christianity did not exist as we know it, and Julian calendar was not invented yet (let alone Gregorian).
Caius Julius Caesar would have been surprised to hear that.
Boom. I erred again. My only hope is that Mr. Caesar doesn't read this list. But it was before Christians adopted Julian calendar. I always wondered which culture invented the concept of seven-day weeks. Vadik. -- Taunt not the sysadmin, for he can become you and make your life interesting.
Vadim Vygonets wrote:
Quoth Clive D.W. Feather on Wed, Oct 04, 2000:
Vadim Vygonets said:
In Hebrew, week days don't have names (except Sabbath). They're just numbered, so "First day of the week" means Sunday, no other interpretation possible. Now, these are Jewish weeks; it does not answer the question whether Christian weeks start on Sunday or Monday.
It does as far as I'm concerned.
How? Christian culture did not exist yet,
Hmmm... Historians disagree upon knowing if the Bible texts were written prior or after the establishement of the first Christian communities.
Remember that when the New Testament was written Christianity did not exist as we know it,
That's for sure! The father of my grand'father, which died in 1956, would have been very surprised to see the Christianity as it exist in these post-1968 years!
and Julian calendar was not invented yet (let alone Gregorian).
Caius Julius Caesar would have been surprised to hear that.
Boom. I erred again. My only hope is that Mr. Caesar doesn't read this list.
His name was Mr. Julius (or more properly Julia, as family name are invariant in English).
But it was before Christians adopted Julian calendar.
And when did they?
I always wondered which culture invented the concept of seven-day weeks.
Because we do not have twenty-nine fingers. On the same subject, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
The Greek week names Monday through Thursday [...] contain the plain words 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th, respectively.
The same holds for Portuguese: Monday is "2a-feiria". Antoine
Antoine Leca wrote:
Hmmm... Historians disagree upon knowing if the Bible texts were written prior or after the establishement of the first Christian communities.
I'm not sure how this issue is related to the first day of week question. May I humbly suggest that if you want to talk about the history of the seven day week you might want to join the CALNDR-L mailing list. That list wonders around in everything from symbolic meaning of calendars, to algorithms for calculating various calendars, to histories of any calendar anyone can find any information about. see http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/calndr-l.html This is not a request to use /dev/null, for I (and several other members of the TZ list) are regulars over there also. I have personally been part of 7 day week discussions on that list. It has been my opinion that the germane topic of the TZ list is tzdata and tzcode. Discussions of general code related to reading and writing Time zones and dates is also within the realm of this mailing list. Numbering days of weeks is part of code, but what is the "right" day 1 is certainly getting a bit of topic. I personally expect any code that defines the days of the week to define symbolic constants, so that I can use CALENDAR_MONDAY, or Calendar::MONDAY or Calendar.MONDAY etc. depending on the language. Just working with numbers is a sure formula for error. cheers, -Paul -- Myriad Genetics: http://www.myriad.com/ Java FAQ: http://www.afu.com/javafaq.html (Section 9, Computer Dating)
Paul Hill wrote:
Antoine Leca wrote:
Hmmm... Historians disagree upon knowing if the Bible texts were written prior or after the establishement of the first Christian communities.
I'm not sure how this issue is related to the first day of week question.
I am sure it is not. Which is what I wrote (you should read it as "since the Bible does not predate the beginning of Christianity, the argument is moot.") I am sorry if my style was elliptic, since I previously had no intention to continue this discussion any further. I assume I should apologize for being off topic. So, I beg your pardon and everyone's else pardon to have followed up on this one. <snip>
Numbering days of weeks is part of code, but what is the "right" day 1 is certainly getting a bit of topic. [...]
May I suggest to return to my post that started this drifting thread: : > what is day 1 ??? : > is it Sunday, or Monday? : : Culturally dependent. : : > what is the Right Thing to do? : : Ask the user. In other words, to NOT bound this in the code : you are writing. I am sorry if it was not caught at first time, but it seems to me we are right now in complete agreement. In the case my English was faulty on the first shot, I mean that what I wrote is exactely the same as your conclusion in the post dated 2000-10-04 10:01:08 -0600. Regards, Antoine
Antoine Leca wrote:
I assume I should apologize for being off topic. So, I beg your pardon and everyone's else pardon to have followed up on this one.
I'm the last one you should apologize to for drifting off topic. I drift all the time. I was just suggesting other forums for those who wanted to pursue such ideas. For everyones information, there is also a time.h mailing list for those who want to discuss that particular code. I'm Sorry, but I don't have a URL for that list. -Paul ---- Myriad Genetics: http://www.myriad.com/ Java FAQ: http://www.afu.com/javafaq.html (Section 9, Computer Dating)
For what it's worth, my vote for the best day numbering scheme is... Sun = 0 (& 7)* Mon = 1 Tue = 2 Wed = 3 Thu = 4 Fri = 5 Sat = 6 This scheme ties in with Judaeo-Christian tradition without placing too much emphasis on Sunday being day 1. * Whilst this scheme does go against the grain of the Gregorian calendarial system which has month and year counts beginning with 1, not zero. This can be overcome by permitting Sunday to be day number 7 instead of day 0. This is easily dealt with by software. (e.g. with "If WeekDay == 7 then WeekDay = 0") Ian Tragen ian@mirage-avm.com http://mirage-avm.com
The week starts on Monday. See "Table 2 - Calendar days" in ISO/FDIS 8601 Data elements and interchange formats -- Information interchange --Representation of dates and times" (see soft copy attached). The ISO 8601 standard is being revised. The revised version will replace the 1988 version currently in use. ISO 8601 is the responsibility of ISO TC 154 "Processes, data elements and documents in commerce, industry and administration". The chair of this ISO TC154 is François Vuilleumier, who the "cc" on this e-mail. However, should you have comments,critiques, suggestions with respect to the contents of ISO/FDIS 8601, the appropriate channel for such comments is via your national standards body and, within it, the entity responsible for participation in ISO TC154. Those of you on the "tz@elsie..." mailing list who are "Canadians" or represent Canada-based organizations, can sent your comments to me and I will ensure that such inputs are brought forward within our Canadian Advisory Committee(CAC) for ISO TC154. I also note that ISO 8601 has a clearly defined and focussed scope. A wider,more expansive standard pertaining to "time" is being developed by ISO TC 211 Geographic information. It is CD "ISO 19108 Geographic information -- Temporal Schema". You can obtain a copy of this document from your national standards body. CD ISO 19108 refers to ISO 8601 as a "Normative Reference". I trust that this information is helpful. regards - Jake Knoppers e-mail: < mpereira@istar.ca >
-----Original Message----- From: Antoine Leca [mailto:Antoine.Leca@renault.fr] Sent: October 4, 2000 1:53 PM To: tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov Subject: Re: week starts at Sunday or Monday??
Paul Hill wrote:
Antoine Leca wrote:
Hmmm... Historians disagree upon knowing if the Bible texts
were written
prior or after the establishement of the first Christian communities.
I'm not sure how this issue is related to the first day of week question.
I am sure it is not. Which is what I wrote (you should read it as "since the Bible does not predate the beginning of Christianity, the argument is moot.") I am sorry if my style was elliptic, since I previously had no intention to continue this discussion any further.
I assume I should apologize for being off topic. So, I beg your pardon and everyone's else pardon to have followed up on this one.
<snip>
Numbering days of weeks is part of code, but what is the "right" day 1 is certainly getting a bit of topic. [...]
May I suggest to return to my post that started this drifting thread: : > what is day 1 ??? : > is it Sunday, or Monday? : : Culturally dependent. : : > what is the Right Thing to do? : : Ask the user. In other words, to NOT bound this in the code : you are writing.
I am sorry if it was not caught at first time, but it seems to me we are right now in complete agreement. In the case my English was faulty on the first shot, I mean that what I wrote is exactely the same as your conclusion in the post dated 2000-10-04 10:01:08 -0600.
Regards, Antoine
Thanks for posting ISO/FDIS 8601:2000. Looks at first glance like a good revision of the standard to me. For section 3.11, it would be nice to have a proper normative reference added for the "Gregorian Calendar". After all, the Vatican has been far longer around and is far more widely known than ISO/ITU/IERS/BIPM and other churches of bureaucracy all together, and like any other standards body it also publishes normative formal documents, so why not reference it properly? Does anyone have the proper reference? If I remember correctly (it has been a long time), Pope Gregory XIII published back in 1582 three official documents: a bulletin that explained the reform, a calendar and a revised list of religious holidays. Also a reference for the Julian calendar? http://www.vatican.va/ http://www.vatican.va/library_archives/vat_library/docs/index.htm http://www.gksoft.com/govt/en/va.html I like that section 4.3.2.1 defines the "prolaptic Gregorian calendar" to have a year 0000, which is a leap year, and that ISO 8601 now has provisions for years outside the 0000 to 9999 range. Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
Markus Kuhn wrote:
Also a reference for the Julian calendar?
Probably not. Caesar's promulgation probably hasn't survived, and surely isn't on the Web anyway.
I like that section 4.3.2.1 defines the "prolaptic Gregorian calendar"
Proleptic, I hope. -- There is / one art || John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com> no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein
John Cowan wrote on 2000-11-02 15:06 UTC:
Markus Kuhn wrote:
Also a reference for the Julian calendar?
Probably not. Caesar's promulgation probably hasn't survived, and surely isn't on the Web anyway.
I like that section 4.3.2.1 defines the "prolaptic Gregorian calendar"
Proleptic, I hope.
This was not my typo. The distributed draft says "prolaptic" (sic). Will need lots of careful proofreading. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/volatile/ISO-FDIS-8601.pdf Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
Numbering days of weeks is part of code, but what is the "right" day 1 is certainly getting a bit of topic. I personally expect any code that defines the days of the week to define symbolic constants, so that I can use CALENDAR_MONDAY, or Calendar::MONDAY or Calendar.MONDAY etc. depending on the language. Just working with numbers is a sure formula for error.
I was very amused to see how this thread was taking off :) Thanks for all the replies! For the time being I had used the suggested ISO standard, where 1=monday, but I might as well provide flexibility, and let the user choose, or use the scheme suggested above. (I hope my employer will let me put this little datetime class library on the web, as 'public domain'. not that it is much - it is just a wrapper, without any logic of it's own, but I have seen that the C library leaves so much room for the average programmer including myself to make a mess of the timezones and especially the Daylight Saving Time issues, that I tried to redefine the user interface of it all). BTW, does anybody know how environment strings such as TZ=EST+05EDT,M04.01.00/00:02:00,M09.03.05/00:02:00 work on windows? I tested them on Linux, and they work fine. I think they are posix (man tzset describes them), but I am not sure if they work on windows. (I sure hope they do..)
On Wed, Oct 04, 2000 at 05:25:59PM +0200, Antoine Leca <Antoine.Leca@renault.fr> wrote:
But it was before Christians adopted Julian calendar.
And when did they?
Sometime between 700 and 1000 AD, depending on the location. Before, they mostly used the alexandrine era, although a lot of different calendars were in use (for example, people thought that the year 800 would be the end of the world, as that year coincided with the year 6000 after the world creation, another popular calendar). It is also not clear wether the years ~600-~900 do exist or were just inserted by some calulcation error during the calendar switch.
I always wondered which culture invented the concept of seven-day weeks.
Because we do not have twenty-nine fingers.
BTW, the number of fingers has almost nothing to do with the numbering systems we use. The dual system (+ extensions like the 2-2-1 system) was predominant until the quintal(?) system took over, with a lot of mixtures between 2-5 and 5-2 etc. systems. The sexagesimal system was also used (together with a decimal system) by the babylonians, but they used their three different systems for different purposes so it is not clear wether they had the concept of abstract numbers. In asia you also often find that people count to 29 using their hands (hoopla ;), and during the middle-age systems to count up to 10000 with your fingers were relatively widespread. Sorry for the divesion but I hope it was at least a bit informative (even if I translated some of the words from german to english without looking them up properly ;) -- -----==- | ----==-- _ | ---==---(_)__ __ ____ __ Marc Lehmann +-- --==---/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / pcg@opengroup.org |e| -=====/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ XX11-RIPE --+ The choice of a GNU generation | |
Marc Lehmann said:
But it was before Christians adopted Julian calendar. And when did they? Sometime between 700 and 1000 AD, depending on the location. Before, they mostly used the alexandrine era, although a lot of different calendars were in use (for example, people thought that the year 800 would be the end of the world, as that year coincided with the year 6000 after the world creation, another popular calendar). It is also not clear wether the years ~600-~900 do exist or were just inserted by some calulcation error during the calendar switch.
I've been wondering - what on earth does this last comment mean ? How can 300 years not exist and be "just inserted by some calculation error" ? -- Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <clive@demon.net> | Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 Internet Expert | Home: <clive@davros.org> | Fax: +44 20 8371 1037 Demon Internet | WWW: http://www.davros.org | DFax: +44 20 8371 4037 Thus plc | | Mobile: +44 7973 377646
"Clive D.W. Feather" wrote on 2000-10-10 09:30 UTC:
Marc Lehmann said:
It is also not clear wether the years ~600-~900 do exist or were just inserted by some calulcation error during the calendar switch.
I've been wondering - what on earth does this last comment mean ? How can 300 years not exist and be "just inserted by some calculation error" ?
This is referring to a quite controversial but also highly interesting theory that a group of amateur historians (mostly in Germany) has been working on for the last 10 years. The most curious corollary of that theory is that Charlemagne never existed and is a character of fiction or a gross exaggeration of the biography of someone else. Some introductory reading: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/volatile/Niemitz-1997.pdf http://www.home.ivm.de/~Guenter/wamse.html http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/361226561X/mgk2504 http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3612264923/mgk2504 http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3776620854/mgk2504 Unfortunately, most of the more detailed publications (in particular the books by Illig and Topper) are only available in German at the moment. By the way, the term "Julian Calendar" has nothing to do with the year numbering scheme. It only refers to the scheme that names the months and determines their length and start. The A.D. year numbering scheme was introduced long after the Julian Calendar, soon after the ~300 years of "dark" early medieval period that Illig et al. claim to be phantom time in European history; allegedly created deliberately by the introduction of an erroneous new "A.D." year numbering scheme. Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
"Clive D.W. Feather" wrote:
It is also not clear [weather] the years ~600-~900 do exist or were just inserted by some calulcation error during the calendar switch.
I've been wondering - what on earth does this last comment mean ? How can 300 years not exist and be "just inserted by some calculation error" ?
It is related to a theory promoted by certain Soviet authors in an attempt to discredit "The West", in which things like repeated patterns of kings and queens hint that someone has accidently duplicated and thus streatched history, putting classical Rome or ancient Egypt not as far back as we normally think of them. For an example, see: http://www.univer.omsk.su/foreign/fom/fom.htm Consider the idea that Byzantine, Jewish, Moslim, Coptic, Hindu, ... chronologies would all suffer from this same 'stutter' present in Western European chronologies in a way that the problem of the insert of extra years has been masked for going on 500 years now. There is also the challenge of correctly correlating various recorded astronomical events. The theory also often relies on some bit of counterfeiting of any document that comes before the mistake or crime was committed. Once you've considered these ideas, you'll appreciate why not many folks have been motivated to look for the 300, 500 or 1000 year gap. The range of missing dates and how and when the mistake or mistakes were made vary depending on who you talk to. This is another topic that got some play on the calendar mailing list back two years or so. Like I hinted at before they're a weird bunch over there. Then again, you can't trust me maybe, I've mistakenly duplicated some chronologies, so it was only last year it was discussed :-) Even on that list it was often more than a bit off topic. Certainly there are no timezone issues that would involve mistaken chronologies from the medieval period, therefore that is all I will say on the subject. -Paul -- Myriad Genetics: http://www.myriad.com/ Java FAQ: http://www.afu.com/javafaq.html (Section 9, Computer Dating)
----- Original Message ----- From: Clive D.W. Feather <clive@demon.net> To: Infoman Inc. <mpereira@istar.ca> Cc: Antoine Leca <Antoine.Leca@renault.fr>; TZ <tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov> Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 12:31 AM Subject: Re: week starts at Sunday or Monday??
Clearly the resurrection - which was on a Sunday - was on the first day of the week. [From context it's clear that the cruxifiction was the day before the sabbath, which makes it a Friday.]
Boy, does this discussion bring back memories. For any member of the religious group known as the Churches of Christ (as well as for us ex-members in recovery) any mention of the phrase "first day of the week" calls up this and several other biblical texts from a database we CofC-ers carry around in our heads after sitting through dozens of mind-numbing sermons on this subject. We even used to sing a hymn before communion, the words of which are so holier-than-thou that I found the song rather offensive even in my church-going days. But since it's on topic by way of documenting the traditional usage in Christendom of beginning the week with Sunday, here are the first verse and chorus in all their (gulp) splendor: Upon the first day of the week Disciples met to break the bread And drink the cup in memory Of Him whose blood for us was shed. Though others may forsake the Lord Yet we are here thy truths to seek. Thy holy presence comforts us, dear Lord, Upon the first day of the week. (Somebody probably owns the copyright for that. Gee, I hope they don't sue me :-) ) Brian
"and on the seventh day, ye shall rest" for Gregorian calendar =Sunday, for Hebraic, Seventh Day Adventists (and others) = Saturday, etc.
Luke:
024:001 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.
024:002 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.
024:003 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.
Clearly the resurrection - which was on a Sunday - was on the first day of the week. [From context it's clear that the cruxifiction was the day before the sabbath, which makes it a Friday.]
so...while politics is not supposed to affect decisions made wrt time zone data, religion is? ;-) -- |-----< "CODE WARRIOR" >-----| codewarrior@daemon.org * "ah! i see you have the internet twofsonet@graffiti.com (Andrew Brown) that goes *ping*!" andrew@crossbar.com * "information is power -- share the wealth."
"Infoman Inc." wrote on 2000-10-03 21:18 UTC:
"and on the seventh day, ye shall rest" for Gregorian calendar =Sunday, for Hebraic, Seventh Day Adventists (and others) = Saturday, etc.
On the other hand, in some languages (e.g., German: "Mittwoch"), the word for Wednesday means literally "middle of the week", which would imply a week-start of Sunday. Unfortunately, I have never seen a proper written rationale for the decision of ISO to declare in ISO 2015:1976 "Numbering of weeks" (withdrawn by TC154 on 1988-06-01 and now superseded by ISO 8601) that the week starts on Monday. Annex A of ISO 8601:1988 just says that before that, various week conventions were in use in various countries and that starting on Monday was considered to be the commercially most useful convention for selecting an international standard. Does anyone have a copy of ISO 2015:1976 that might contain a more detailed rationale? I do vaguely remember that I have read many years ago in a German publication for hobby astronomers a good article on the ISO week numbering standard. It said something along the lines that workers find it more convenient of weekly shift rotations start during the night from Sunday to Monday, because most people prefer to have a complete weekend before a shift change. Therefore, it seemed most compatible with industrial planning practice to start the new week on Monday as then shift rotations would correspond exactly to the week number. There were similar reasons for accounting practice in 24x7 operations and for the idea of making week 1 the first week with the majority of the days in the new year (to avoid pathologic partial weeks at the beginning and end of most years). The article also mentioned some protest by the churches in Germany, when around 1977 the DIN standard for calendar dates was changed to the new ISO convention and printed calendars started to show Monday as the first day of the week accordingly. Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
Most pre-printed calendars that I have seen in the United States show Sunday as the first day of the week. I think I have seen "specialty" calendars that have Monday as the first day but these are obviously an exception. The "Zeller's Congruence" algorithm as normally presented uses Sunday as the first day of the week. One site (http://serendipity.magnet.ch/hermetic/cal_stud/newman.htm) presents a draft specification that contains a subroutine based on this algorithm at the end of the page and assumes Sunday is zero. There is also a reference to the timezone data site in this draft. This page references an out of date FTP page but I suspect that there is an official page already (I have not bothered to look for it). I saw another page from 1996 that presented the algorithm as part of a programming contest (http://www.sandusky.k12.mi.us/cs96_1.htm - problem 4) and presented essentially the same algorithm. The http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/moredate.htm page has the following: --- The Start of the Week Traditionally, at least for the English, the week starts on Sunday, which is the Holy Day and the first day of the seven, numbered "one". Others have different Holy Days, perhaps at the end of their week, but generally occurring on the English days Friday or Saturday, and with their own choice of starting and finishing times. The International Standards Organisation, in ISO-8601, prefers to start the week later, with day one being Monday. British Standards agree. Normally, the day numbers are considered ordinal, from the first to the seventh, as is the case for the days of the month. But some prefer cardinals, with the days being numbered 0..6 in sequence. --- Perhaps a "Zeller's Congruence" based set of routines following the ISO standard would be useful.... -- Martin Smoot Network Storage Solutions 703-834-2242 msmoot@nssolutions.com www.nssolutions.com
participants (13)
-
Andrew Brown -
Antoine Leca -
Brian Garrett -
Christoph Bugel -
Clive D.W. Feather -
Infoman Inc. -
John Cowan -
Marc Lehmann -
Markus Kuhn -
Martin Smoot -
MiRaGe＠MiRaGe-avm.com -
Paul Hill -
Vadim Vygonets