Many, if not most, documents contain date and time information. There
are many conventions for representing it.
It would be VERY nice to have standard markup for date and time so that
(a) it can be rendered in the READER's local convention (e.g.
month/day/year in the US and day/month/year in the rest of the world
(b) it can be rendered in the reader's local timezone (or GMT)
(c) The user can input dates/times in a form input field (as mentioned
in the draft RFC) in the correct local convention/timezone, and the
target recieves them in GMT.
(d) numeric dates can be easily extracted from / inserted into
documents (e.g a directory browsing http server can show update times
for files without having to render them itself
(e) A common date format can be used to tell when a document has been
updated in HTTP, when automatic updating etc becomes widespread. Not
essential, maybe, but convenient, as above.
Peter Lister p.lister@cranfield.ac.uk
Computer Centre,
Cranfield Institute of Technology, Voice: +44 234 754200 ext 2828
Cranfield, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL England Fax: +44 234 750875