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Date Parsing: Natural Language, Relative Date Options Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacBerry View Post
And this interpretation comes just as much from common sense as yours does. "Next Friday" differentiates it from "last Friday". Yes it's inconsistent, but that's language for you. "Your" system is just as "incorrect" logically, as the day you are describing as "next Friday" is NOT the next Friday on the calendar.
Can't we just type "friday" to get this Friday, and "next friday" to get the Friday of next week. Even if your use of "next friday" in speech can mean just "friday", would anyone every choose to type the unnecessary "next" unless they wanted Friday of next week? If the only people who would type "next" meant Friday of next week, wouldn't it make sense to make this the default (or at least an optional) behavior? BTW here in Boston I've never heard anyone refer to the upcoming Friday as "next Friday". It just seems like a waste of the word "next" ;)
 
Well no, if we're going to use "natural language", and it's not natural to a large number of users, then it won't work!

An argument about what should and shouldn't be in common use in language is pointless, because even if you "win" on logical terms, you won't change how people speak.
 
I agree that if it is ever the case that if someone were to ever type "next friday" and mean the upcoming Friday, then we can't assume that "next friday" is the Friday after next. However, even if you would use that form in speech, would you ever type "next" if you didn't have to? If so, maybe a choice between the two uses is in order, because I've run into a number of cases where I wanted to schedule something for a weekday of the next week, and had to use the calendar instead of typing it out the way I would say it.
 
Well, I'd agree that just typing "Friday" would always mean the next Friday on the calendar, or at least would on the (logical) assumption that dates are always in the future, so it's not "Friday just gone".

An option I don't know, because I'm not sure how you'd define it, given that I see people changing what they mean by "next Friday" depending on what today is and the context.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of natural language entry, and think that having Friday always mean the next Friday on the calendar, and next Friday mean the Friday after that is totally logical, so that if we had to have it and only one way, that'd be it, but I just think it'd be "wrong" in many people's minds. I can think of loads of situations where people normally use "next Friday" to mean the next one on the calendar, such as when speaking ON a Friday, and worry that they'd apply the same here.

Mark
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by curt.clifton View Post
I agree that dates should always default to the future.
It seems the nice folks at Omni have changed this behavior in some recent bulid. Kudos to them!

Quote:
Originally Posted by curt.clifton View Post
I also agree that "Next Friday" is 9 days away as I type this. Note that you can enter "+1w Friday" to get the Friday of next week. That's a format that only a programmer could love, but then, I'm a programmer! :-)
Apropos this discussion: the meaning of "Next Friday" etc. varies dramatically based on the person, where they were born, where they live, etc. etc. There is, quite simply, no single answer that's going to keep everyone happy. If you don't believe me, go check out the archives of alt.usage.english on the topic. (Whether anyone even remembers Usenet these days is a different question.)
 
what are the "legal" us english abbreviations for days of the week? i noticed you used tues. i tried using t for tuesday and got the beginning of the month which doesn't make any sense to me. it would be nice to be able to use m t w th f s su or something similar.
 
Maybe this is because I'm changing a due date rather than setting it initially, or maybe something else ... but when I type "1w" or "+1w" in the due date column, I'm getting 12/8/2007, which is 4 days ago.
 
Thanks for the wonderful date adding options, yet I fell victim of my own language trying to enter "this friday" hoping to get a reference to this friday, yet instead the first of the month was chosen. I am sure that such a small extension can save a lot of confusion to the users in the future!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dvrooman View Post
what are the "legal" us english abbreviations for days of the week? i noticed you used tues. i tried using t for tuesday and got the beginning of the month which doesn't make any sense to me. it would be nice to be able to use m t w th f s su or something similar.
the allowed abbreviations are the first 3 letters, by locale.
 
Edited the first post to reflect some changes, notably in our this/next/last handling.
 
 


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