Hi Ordak, Lemme welcome you to our list. Comments below.
On Tue, 18 May 2004, Ordak D. Coward wrote: > - As the lunar calendar in Iran is observation based, there is no way > to have an exact conversion for a date in future to/from lunar > calendar. However, it is possible to do so for past dates. What I > suggest is that the implementation SHALL convert dates precisely for > past dates, and do a best guess conversion for future dates. Hence, > the conversion algorithm (or a related resource) needs to be updated > at most 12 times a year, and in case of Iran, only at the beginning of > Ramadhan and Shawwal. This update could as well be propagated through > a network protocol like NTP (Network Time Protocol). > Also, the conversion shall try to conform to the official published > Iranian calendar for future dates in the same year. For future years, > it should calculate the lunar calendar using astronomical methods. That has been our (FarsiWeb's) idea too. BTW, the protocol better be XML-RPC over HTTP. > - Mordad vs. Amordad. I have seen both in calendars, but I guess I do > not count, as I have been out of Iran for a long time now! Anyway, I > have only seen Amordad in day planners marketed at the higher end. So, > in my opinion, Mordad or Amordad are both fine. Although I prefer to > see Mordad myself. But, I think this should be a user option. And does > not need to be implemented at the convesion level Omid is working on. I still vote for Mordad. Using Amordad is like writing Ordi-Behesht instead of Ordibehesh. The fact is that, languages change over time. It's like using Shaksepearean English. > - b.z vs. asr. I do not know the flexibility of the API, but it would > be nice if we can have three designators, sobh, asr and shab. sobh is > for 6:00 am to 11:59pm. asr for 12:00 am to 5:59pm, and shab for > 6:00pm to 5:59am. > The time ranges are not exact, but they are close to what you hear if > you want to set appointments in Iran. Exactly. In fact I have proposed this one: 00:00-00:59: Nimeh-shab 01:00-06:59: Bamdad 07:00-11:59: Sobh 12:00-12:59: Zohr 13:00-18:59: Asr 19:00-23:59: Shab > - Jalali vs Iranian. I strongly prefer Jalali, as it refers to a > spcific method of keeping dates regardless of the country it is used > in. For example, if were still under Qajar rule or Pahlavi rule, then > we would have either used Hijri-Qamari calendar or Shahanshai, still > both would have been considered Iranian calendar. So, in a country > which has recently changed its official calendar a few times, we > better stick to a name that will be in place regardless of the > government. I am under the impression that the current calendar is use > is techincally Birashk's calendar. Birashk perfected the old Jalali > Calendar (which had 33/128 year periods vs 33/128/2820 year periods of > Birashk). I'm still against Jalali, because as Roozbeh mentioned, the Jalali calendar has been different in number of months. To be exact, we should call it Birashk, but since it's highly unprobable that the Iranian calendar changes again, I say lets stick with Iranian Calendar. About Shahanshahi era, a good converter can assume years 2500-2600 are in this era (Hint Hamed). > - Birashk's book. He had published a book on his work, if memory > serves me, it was called 'taarikh-tatbighi-ye Iran'. He had a few > examples of different date conversions, using a rather large table for > lookups. That table could be used as a test vector for the date > conversion utility. I once did my own derivations to derive his table, > and except one entry, my code and his table conformed. I never figured > the source of the discrepancy. I just ordered the book. Will let people know when I get my hands to it. > -- > ODC > > PS. I hope no one gets offended by my chouce of pseudonym. Looks like we have found a great man. Would you mind introducing yourself and telling us more about your background? Later, --behdad behdad.org _______________________________________________ PersianComputing mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.sharif.edu/mailman/listinfo/persiancomputing
