[ALUG] Gnome "calendar" is incorrect!

[(Ted Harding)]

On 08-Oct-06 Adam Bower wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 03:58:25PM +0100, Ted Harding wrote:
> 
>> Specifically: The "calendar"/"clock" application
>> in the Gnome panel is incorrect for the year 1752
>> (and therefore for all preceding years).
> 
> Oh, yes... hmmn, doesn't do Julian > Gregorian correctly...
> I wonder what Windows does, oh... how disappointing, Windows
> only does 1980 > 2099 how rubbish ;)

Well, that might be Windows doing a crap emulation of Unix
(where the origin of time is 01/01/1970 00:00:00,
and I guess sometime in 1980 may be about right for Windows,
though I doubt they were up at midnight to see it in).

>> It is described as the "Clock Applet", and its Help
>> only describes its time functions. However, when
>> you left-click on it a calendar comes up, which is
>> what I'm referring to. This is not described anywhere
>> that I can find. Nor can I locate what program is
>> executed for the "Clock Applet".
> 
> It is part of the Gnome Panel package on my Ubuntu box. 
> 
>> Any thoughts? [trivial question of course...]
> 
> I'm guessing that it was programmed badly not using the
> standard libraries for doing this kind of thing, but far more
> importantly how on earth did you discover this? Given that
> I had to hold down the mouse button for nearly a minute to
> scroll back to 1752! You do know about the program cal don't
> you? As I compared the output from gnome calendar to the
> output from the command cal 1752.

I was prompted to investigate by catching someone referring
to the Julian->Gregorian transition on the radio this morning.

I've known about 'cal' since 1984, and about its respect for
the transition (documented in 'man cal').

So when I heard the reference I suddenly wondered whether
the Gnome Clock applet also respected it, and decidied to
check.

As the rioters in 1752 called out: "Give us back our 11 days".
Gnome Clock has heeded the call (but in such a way that they
couldn't have enjoyed them post 2 Sep 1752 anyway).

The FreeBSD version of 'cal', or rather its new version 'ncal',
is more sophisticated that the standard Linux version, in that
it has extra options, including "-s":

  -s country_code
     Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at
     the date associated with the country_code.  If not
     specified, ncal tries to guess the switch date from the
     local environment or falls back to September 2, 1752.
     This was when Great Britain and her colonies switched to
     the Gregorian Calendar.

However:

  BUGS
    The assignment of Julian - Gregorian switching dates to
    country codes is historically naive for many countries.

Best wishes,
Ted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
Date: 08-Oct-06                                       Time: 18:27:43
------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------