Subject: Re: bug#11042: 24.0.94; dangerous org manual: parse-time-months and parse-time-weekdays

From: Bastien <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:00:34 +0100

Hi Michael,

Michael Heerdegen <[email-masked]> writes:

> The org-mode manual under the node "The date/time prompt" tells:
>
>   "[...] The function understands English month and weekday abbreviations.  If
> you want to use unabbreviated names and/or other languages, configure
> the variables `parse-time-months' and `parse-time-weekdays'."
>
> It doesn't tell how the user can do that.  Even worse,
> `parse-time-months' and `parse-time-weekdays' are not defined as user
> options and undocumented!
>
> After reading the above section in the org manual, users may replace
> the English names with e.g. German ones in their config.  Seems this
> is not a good idea, as this user question in gnu.emacs.gnus shows:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.gnus/browse_thread/thread/8dde85b5ff3ab454/a02ddb878bfa1eb9

The thread doesn't tell what is wrong with setting `parse-time-months'
and `parse-time-weekdays'.  Can you expand a bit more on this?

> BTW1: maybe a better solution would be to define own variables for
> this purpose in org, instead of letting users change variables in
> parse-time.el.

Org heavily depends on parse-time.el.  Providing a defcustom in Org
that is tied to parse-time.el at the same time is not trivial.

Thanks,

-- 
 Bastien