[Zope-CMF] DateTime support for Norwegian dateformat? (offtopic)

[jkpikifi]

--- In zopeCMF@y..., Toby Dickenson <tdickenson@d...> wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Dec 2001 12:57:11 -0000, "jkpikifi" <jkp@i...> wrote:
> 
> >As for date output, locale-specific formats can be used already. 
> 
> But *whose* locale? 

One reasonable guesstimate is the locale of the zope server process,
which is reasonable to set to the locale suitable for most of the
intended audience for the web service.  For example, I tend to run
zope services as fi_FI locale as most of the text is in Finnish (some
English, some Swedish also), despite the fact that no doubt some users
are accessing the services from outside Finland.  I don't think it's
an unreasonable default to use fi_FI lcoale for a web service residing
in Finland, intended mostly for people with some connection to Finland.

Perhaps in the future it will be possible to use the language settings
of the browser to guesstimate the best locale for each specific user,
and the zope process would set the locale for each request to the
locale specified by the browser's language preference.  Or perhaps
there will be a locale preference sent by the browser the same way
there's a language preference now.

> Only if you are writing an intranet (or smaller) application is there
> is a single unique answer to that question

Well, despite globalization and distributed and mobile systems, I
think there still is a significant fraction of public web services
which are meant primarily to an audience of one culture/language or at
least to an audience with at least some familiarity with that culture,
and it's reasonable to use that culture's date language, date formats,
etc. to present the service.  And it's not unreasonable to present
that culture's preferences to readers from other cultures, either. 
That's what everyone does in other media all the time - when I've
subscribed to or read British magazines, I didn't notice them using
ISO date formats, and didn't expect them to either.

Perhaps we should move this off-topic discussion to a forum more
suitable.  http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zip perhaps?  It has
been relatively silent, but has recently had some activity.

Jyrki