Talk:Last Friday of each month: Difference between revisions

Content added Content deleted
m (→‎1582: corrected a wrong word. -- ~~~~)
(→‎1582: added comments about hybrid calendar system, G.W.'s birth year, revolutions, and year 4: leap year or not. -- ~~~~)
Line 170: Line 170:


:::: The Gregorian Calendar isn't a hyrid calendar --- which is contrary to (I assume) some Java document --- one should refer to the (I can't believe I'm saying this) Vatican papers about it's description, rules, and implementation). Failing that, one could just check the bureau of weights and measurements, division of measurement standards, or whatever ... for the country you're in. It is proleptic (both in it's inception and use) and there is no discontinuity. [Nothing is really simple, the more you know about something, the more detail there is that you don't want to neccessarily know or care about]. The only point of interest is when states/countries switched over from the (whatever) older calendar(s) [in most cases, a Julian calendar] to the Gregorian calendar, and that switchover caused "missing days" when the new calendar was adopted and the old calendar was dropped. The pratical side to this is when referring to specific dates, such as (USA president) George Washington's birthday (some of old fogies still remember when GW's birthday was celebrated on the ''O.S.'' birthdate ... and then later came President's Day. The pratical side of the changeover didn't really effect many people (or contracts), there was no driver's licenses to worry about, no retirements kicking in (Social Security was a long, long way off), I suppose there was a handful of people who suddenly become over the age of consent for marriage, property ownership, inheritance, impressment, and other ... stuff, the most important was the ability to buy beer, of course, of course. The adoption of a new/different calendar (with different leapyear rules, and now, leapsecond rules) isn't a simple thing, otherwise it wouldn't have been resisted for so long by many states/countries, and, not supprising, politics/religion/posturing played a big role in this. We still squabble (a very polite term) over daylight savings times, and you won't believe the (USA) laws around the use (or not) of it --- on how they effect labor (time worked vs. time passed), 24/7 type of contracts, end-of-use clauses, a whole host of incidentals. -- [[User:Gerard Schildberger|Gerard Schildberger]] 19:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
:::: The Gregorian Calendar isn't a hyrid calendar --- which is contrary to (I assume) some Java document --- one should refer to the (I can't believe I'm saying this) Vatican papers about it's description, rules, and implementation). Failing that, one could just check the bureau of weights and measurements, division of measurement standards, or whatever ... for the country you're in. It is proleptic (both in it's inception and use) and there is no discontinuity. [Nothing is really simple, the more you know about something, the more detail there is that you don't want to neccessarily know or care about]. The only point of interest is when states/countries switched over from the (whatever) older calendar(s) [in most cases, a Julian calendar] to the Gregorian calendar, and that switchover caused "missing days" when the new calendar was adopted and the old calendar was dropped. The pratical side to this is when referring to specific dates, such as (USA president) George Washington's birthday (some of old fogies still remember when GW's birthday was celebrated on the ''O.S.'' birthdate ... and then later came President's Day. The pratical side of the changeover didn't really effect many people (or contracts), there was no driver's licenses to worry about, no retirements kicking in (Social Security was a long, long way off), I suppose there was a handful of people who suddenly become over the age of consent for marriage, property ownership, inheritance, impressment, and other ... stuff, the most important was the ability to buy beer, of course, of course. The adoption of a new/different calendar (with different leapyear rules, and now, leapsecond rules) isn't a simple thing, otherwise it wouldn't have been resisted for so long by many states/countries, and, not supprising, politics/religion/posturing played a big role in this. We still squabble (a very polite term) over daylight savings times, and you won't believe the (USA) laws around the use (or not) of it --- on how they effect labor (time worked vs. time passed), 24/7 type of contracts, end-of-use clauses, a whole host of incidentals. -- [[User:Gerard Schildberger|Gerard Schildberger]] 19:10, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

:::::Ignoring pretty much all of that....do you have a problem with the Java code? What do you want to know about it? I don't want to know anything about the calendar systems yet. I'm just trying to figure out if you guys think the program is wrong or not. --[[User:Mwn3d|Mwn3d]] 20:30, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
:::::Ignoring pretty much all of that....do you have a problem with the Java code? What do you want to know about it? I don't want to know anything about the calendar systems yet. I'm just trying to figure out if you guys think the program is wrong or not. --[[User:Mwn3d|Mwn3d]] 20:30, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't have a dog in that fight (as pertaining to Java code and how it interprets/presents/discombobulates/converts Gregorian and Julian dates). But, as far as I can interpret from the quoted text from the documentation about the Object that the Java code is using, it states that the Gregorian calendar is a hybrid calendar. It isn't. (Possibly, it meant the way Java treats dates is a hybrid system?) Possibly, the Java code treats dates after a "switchover" (there were many switchovers, depending on the state/country) as Gregorian, and Julian before that.

If the Java code supports Julian '''and''' Gregorian as an option (as separate function/subroutine options), that would seem to be OK. But the quoted statement says it supports a single discontinuity with an assumed date of when the Gregorian calendar was adopted by most of the (Holy Roman) Catholic world back in 1582, then it appears that the Java code writer(s) think that the Gregorian calendar isn't proleptic [proleptic essentially means that it extends backwards in time with no discontinuity back to January 1st, year 1], and the Java code then (it appears to me) switches back to the Julian year method. If that is true, then the Java code would have to use the Julian leapyear rules, and also that some Julian new years start on March 25th (Lady Day) [in some countries], not January 1st. To check this, see what year George Washington (USA president) was born in the O.S.); if Java says 1731, then that's the correct year for the Old Style (Julian) format.

Note that according to the Gregorian calendar, George Washington was born in the year 1732.

Also note that Russia's October Revolution (being Eastern Orthodox Catholic, didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1924) actually happened in November (in the Gregorian calendar). I just love trivia.

This subject is, for the most part, pretty much out of my league, and needs a scholar's attention. I ain't that. I hoped I paraphrased and stated accurately some of the differences between Gregorian and Julian calendars (N.S. vs. O.S.).

Most people think that the leap year rule for the Julian calander was simple: years divisible by 4 are leap years. Not so. Julian year 4 wasn't a leap year (see if the Java code supports that). Some scholars think that Julian year 8 wasn't a leap year as well, but I can't find that reference on the "google-net" anymore.

If we don't read and understand history, we're doomed to repeat it's mistakes. -- [[User:Gerard Schildberger|Gerard Schildberger]] 19:27, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

-----