3 ms·

But then you're not dealing with dates at all, just categories which happen to have names that look like dates, no? Like you say, a "folder". But the photo fil

But then you're not dealing with dates at all, just categories which happen to have names that look like dates, no? Like you say, a "folder". But the photo file's metadata will either have a complete DateTime, or none at all, unless there is some sort of camera that is able to know what day of the year it is without knowing the year! Which due to things like leap years is impossible.

rocqua 6y ago
> But then you're not dealing with dates at all, just categories which happen to have names that look like dates, no? If you and your client disagree about what constitutes a date, that doesn't mean "your client is wrong" it means "you need better communication. You can't fix this problem by requiring everyone use consistent definitions. Instead the solution is to check assumptions as often as possible.
IggleSniggle 6y ago
Importantly, these “date-like” things have important date-semantics. That is, it may be reasonable to expect your software to be able to handle varieties of precision or completeness of date metadata, in which case your date representation may need to be able to interact with DateTime fluidly without actually being one itself, despite it being tempting to remove these possibilities by making incomplete date information unrepresentable.
will4274 6y ago
> some sort of camera that is able to know what day of the year it is without knowing the year! Which due to things like leap years is impossible. Just a small note, as we're talking about assumptions, but this is clearly untrue. Consider - for decades, humans wore watches that knew the day of the month, but not the month - you were just expected to turn the day forward on the 1st day of months following non-31 day months. Similarly, we can imagine disposable cameras that ask the user for the current day on first use and simply assume leap years don't exist, and require the user to correct the date for any leap years. You might call this a silly design, but systems often have to interact with external systems that have silly designs. I believe I actually owned a toy PDA (a device for a child, not an adult) that did not have a year back in the 2003 or so.

rocqua 6y ago

> But then you're not dealing with dates at all, just categories which happen to have names that look like dates, no? If you and your client disagree about what constitutes a date, that doesn't mean "your client is wrong" it means "you need better communication. You can't fix this problem by requiring everyone use consistent definitions. Instead the solution is to check assumptions as often as possible.

IggleSniggle 6y ago

Importantly, these “date-like” things have important date-semantics. That is, it may be reasonable to expect your software to be able to handle varieties of precision or completeness of date metadata, in which case your date representation may need to be able to interact with DateTime fluidly without actually being one itself, despite it being tempting to remove these possibilities by making incomplete date information unrepresentable.

will4274 6y ago

> some sort of camera that is able to know what day of the year it is without knowing the year! Which due to things like leap years is impossible. Just a small note, as we're talking about assumptions, but this is clearly untrue. Consider - for decades, humans wore watches that knew the day of the month, but not the month - you were just expected to turn the day forward on the 1st day of months following non-31 day months. Similarly, we can imagine disposable cameras that ask the user for the current day on first use and simply assume leap years don't exist, and require the user to correct the date for any leap years. You might call this a silly design, but systems often have to interact with external systems that have silly designs. I believe I actually owned a toy PDA (a device for a child, not an adult) that did not have a year back in the 2003 or so.