On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 12:08 AM, Jim Franz <franz400@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
btw - we need to stop thinking csv is an "Excel" format
(not you John, but earlier thread). It existed long before
Excel, and btw it is one of many formats Excel can output.
The format pre-dates PC's!
I'm glad you don't count me as someone who conflates Excel and CSV,
and I agree it's a little disappointing when people do. Especially
since a CSV generated by something other than Excel will usually
behave very differently than a CSV generated by Excel (unless
specifically designed to mimic Excel).
However, when people associate CSV with Excel, I look at it as mainly
a pragmatic issue. People who have to deal with data from Windows
(and to a lesser extent, Macs) are simply going to encounter a lot of
CSVs that were saved from Excel. If they are going to learn one
"dialect" of CSV, it ought to be the one they encounter most in the
real world.
If we are going to get pedantic about history and the origins of
things, can we start by educating people that Julian dates have
nothing whatsoever to do with "days from the beginning of the year"?
Julian dates most properly refer to the calendrical system enacted in
Julius Caesar's reign (that had exactly one leap day every four years,
which makes the calendar year slightly too long). It's bad enough
astronomers have somehow turned it into "days since 4713 BC". At
least they are still referring to the Julian year of exactly 365.25
days. IBM's "Julian dates" have as much to do with *actual* Julian
dates as Julian Lennon.
midrange.com
