Re: [FEATURE REQUEST] Timezone support in org-mode datestamps and org-agenda

[Ihor Radchenko]

Sterling Hooten <hooten@gmail.com> writes:

>> Design for human consumption is one of the reasons we do provide the
>> redundant information like week day (I personally did find it extremely
>> useful on multiple occasions) and do use spaces, deviating from ISO. The
>> above ISO example is barely readable by humans. Another example from
>> wiki page of ISO 8601 is even worse: R5/2008-03-01T13:00:00Z/P1Y2M10DT2H30M
>
> Certainly agree that the ISO format can be difficult for humans to read, both 
> from 
> the lack of spaces and terse syntax.
>
> This isn’t (much) of a problem from a display format perspective because we 
> can parse 
> the encoded format and present the user with a human readable version. So the 
> readability 
> issue is more about the encoded format. But unlike the display format, which 
> could follow 
> whatever grammar or locale preference of the user, the encoded format must be 
> unambiguously parseable. If it’s possible to make the ISO format more human 
> readable 
> while still preserving parseability this could be viable.

You miss that Org should be readable outside Emacs and also outside text
editor that understands Org specifically. Ideally, one should be able to
read Org files in raw form, using notepad or simple cat command. There
is no such thing as "encoding" vs. "display". The encoded format should
be readable by default as well.

Think of Org tables - would take a great care adding all the redundant
spaces to align things nicely despite an alternative possible approach
purely using fontification. Same for heading tags where the alignment is
done by extra spaces.

> I’m less arguing against the option for encoding things in a variation of the 
> ISO standard, 
> but urging that Org support using an encoding of the ISO format in its raw 
> state.

I do not mind supporting raw ISO as an option. But not as the default 
representation.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>