[thelist] Tip -- Object Oriented Programing

Tim Stewart tstewart at gisca.adelaide.edu.au
Mon Jul 10 03:20:40 CDT 2000


Hi Anthony

I wrote:

> I received the 'killa kangas' on another (programmers) mailing list last
> year. It's on my wall in the office, and I'll let the list know the true
> authorship details when I return to Adelaide next week.

Due to the strange functioning of my email system when I'm on the road, it
is now next week already!

CARELESS CODE RECYCLING CAUSES KILLER KANGAS

>From June 15, 1999 Defense Science and Technology Organization Lecture
Series, Melbourne, Australia, and staff reports.

(Not sure about the spelling there. In proper English / Australian it would
be defence organisation. The original email came from a Canadian, so I
expect it was written in American. Several countries divided by the same
language.)

<tip type="Date formats">
It's not only spellings that separate various international versions of the
English language, there's also the practice of swapping the order of day and
month in quoting dates. 3/4/95 could be the fourth of May (America) or the
third of April (elsewhere). In order to avoid confusion, use the full or
abbreviated textual month name - like 3 April 1995 or May 4 1995. Don't fool
yourself into thinking that numerically stated dates are more
"international" - they are not even valid between nations who speak the same
language. When you come to translate your document, you can just translate
the month as well.
</tip>

Tim Stewart
tstewart at gisca.adelaide.edu.au





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