[Zope] mxDateTime anyone

Jason Cunliffe jasonic@nomadicsltd.com
Tue, 26 Sep 2000 02:47:55 -0400


Hello

Whenever I end up wanting to do some real work with dates and time I end up
being referred to the lovely mxDateTime package.
http://starship.python.net/~lemburg/mxDateTime.html

Unfortunately Zope does not use this yet..
The real shame is that it is not the standard default for Python and then
everyone could benefit.

Q1: Is there any plan to use mxDateTime in Zope?

Q2: Has anyone here been working with it anyway, via External Methods for
example?
I would love to hear what you have been doing and how you solved any Zope
namespace conflicts, passing of
variables etc..

I posted on this back in the spring and did get some kind advice, but ran in
to some other problems, which I could not solve then. So at the time I
decided to compromise, avoid  those hassles and use Zope's built-in tools.

But the nagging problem won't go away that a more robust system is needed,
And with the cool timestamp arithmetic and functions that mxDateTime has.

I have an application where we want to have lots of data older than the
beginning of Unix for example.. [my birthday  to take a trivial example].
Application #1 is  history database system where all sorts of places, art
etc can be handled via Zope. Without a decent DateTime mechanism I can't see
how to use it. Maybe I am missing something about Zopes features, but it
look like it will be a mess for anything pre1970. I hope I am wrong..
Application #2 is for intermodal transport - lots of shifting relative dates
and times, odd arithmetic to do with days of week,  2nd Thursday in the
month etc. mxDateTime is great for all this.

Q3: Does anyone have tips or good advice how to do this with Zope's own if
mxDateTime can be used?

Thanks
- Jason
________________________________________________________________
Jason CUNLIFFE = NOMADICS.(Interactive Art and Technology).Design Director