Subject: Re: silly request for ideas about about silly change
To: NetBSD Userlevel Technical Discussion List <tech-userlevel@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Greg A. Woods <woods@weird.com>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 06/21/2002 20:19:33
[ On Saturday, June 22, 2002 at 01:25:50 (+0300), Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: silly request for ideas about about silly change
>
> > > Actually, how about looking in locale? That's the storehouse for
> > > preferences like this, isn't it?
> > > 
> > Hm, don't know, maybe. I had some vague memory that the week numbering
> > was part of the timezone info, but I may be wrong there. Someone will
> > probably inform about this.
> 
> No, it's not, and in general I think locales should be avoided like
> plague.  While useful for some rough adjustments they are too blunt
> a tool for small cultural adjustments like this.

You've got to start somewhere -- i.e. if you're going to have a knob to
tweak then you need a reasonable default setting, and if the knob is
usually tweaked depending on where you are in the world (timezone), or
what language you're using (locale, eg. $LANG), then it makes sense to
use a readily available hint like locales to dynamically choose the
default setting.  (but of course that's why locales have gotten so damn
complex! :-)

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods@acm.org>;  <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;  <woods@robohack.ca>
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