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Use Timestamps

jankremer.eu

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Re: Use Timestamps

#71

Post by avodonosov »

usrbinbash wrote: post #55
mog_dev wrote: post #3

I don't understand how people can accept the browser hiding the URL.

People without a technical background could accept a browser that doesn't display an URL at all. Just put a nice big Button with the Google-Logo somewhere, which for many people is "The internet" and they are happy. And anyone claiming otherwise should riddle me this: How do most non-technical people in the world access "awesomepageireallylike.something"? That's right, they click into the address bar, start typing un…

URL is a central concept in web browsing. Hiding it from users goes against the main usability principle that the user should understand what's going on.

One does not need a technical background to understand URLs.

Browser hiding URLs is like an OS hiding file system structure from users, because files and directories are "too technioal" for them.

Re: Use Timestamps

#72

Post by LikesPwsh »

user261 wrote: post #8

It's something that I agree with and increasingly I add dates in my notes. In addition to that, using one single format is really important. if the article was published on say November 2nd. I wouldn't know if it was 11th February or 2nd November. DD MMM YYYY is safest. The 3Ms being Jan, Feb, Mar....

Mmm doesn't localise well either.

E.g. French has Juin and Juillet, both "jui" start.

Better to just use yyyy-mm-dd everywhere. I see so many bugs from people still using US date format in 2023.

Re: Use Timestamps

#73

Post by jorams »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #53
Heinrich_zHM wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can include an edit timestamp.

This still sort of codifies the edit is a discrete event, and not an ongoing process.

That's a good thing, because that final edit is a discrete event. At some point this ongoing process will end and the edits will stop. The people engaged in the process will likely forget or not be available to add a final timestamp, but an aging edit timestamp will automatically indicate this moment in time.

Re: Use Timestamps

#74

Post by leejo »

mat0 wrote: post #70
karl42 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shows "2023-11-15" below the title for me.

That wouldn't be considered a timestamp in my book. For starters, it doesn't have time information, only date information. Quickly asking ChatGPT it gives this answer: In computing, timestamps are commonly expressed in formats like "YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss" (year-month-day hour:minute:second). When pressed about this particular time detail, ChatGPT elaborates: While "YYYY-MM-DD" is a common date format, it's not complete…

The blog post contains a timestamp in the RSS feed. In fact, the referenced post by Julia Evans also contains a timestamp in its RSS feed as well.

However, the post is making the point that the date should be in the post as viewed by the human reader as clearly as possible, which isn't the case in the the referenced post by Julia Evans.

In the third paragraph the author notes that "Only when I copied the URL to complain about it I discovered the date there". So there is no confusion on the author's part about what a timestamp is versus what a date is.

Re: Use Timestamps

#75

Post by marginalia_nu »

mat0 wrote: post #70
karl42 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shows "2023-11-15" below the title for me.

That wouldn't be considered a timestamp in my book. For starters, it doesn't have time information, only date information. Quickly asking ChatGPT it gives this answer: In computing, timestamps are commonly expressed in formats like "YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss" (year-month-day hour:minute:second). When pressed about this particular time detail, ChatGPT elaborates: While "YYYY-MM-DD" is a common date format, it's not complete…

Are you really referencing ChatGPT as an authority on factual matters?

Re: Use Timestamps

#76

Post by usrbinbash »

avodonosov wrote: post #71
usrbinbash wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People without a technical background could accept a browser that doesn't display an URL at all. Just put a nice big Button with the Google-Logo somewhere, which for many people is "The internet" and they are happy. And anyone claiming otherwise should riddle me this: How do most non-technical people in the world access "awesomepageireallylike.something"? That's right, they click into the address bar, start typing un…

URL is a central concept in web browsing. Hiding it from users goes against the main usability principle that the user should understand what's going on. One does not need a technical background to understand URLs. Browser hiding URLs is like an OS hiding file system structure from users, because files and directories are "too technioal" for them.

> that the user should understand what's going on

Sure he should. But design maxime of a lot of contemporary software does exactly the opposite: Hiding as much of the "icky techy stuff" from the user as possible.

> One does not need a technical background to understand URLs.

That's true, but doesn't change the fact that most people don't. For example, how many people know that the domain of an URL is organised right-to-left? I met people in tech, including programmers, who never figured that out.

> Browser hiding URLs is like an OS hiding file system structure from users, because files and directories are "too technioal" for them.

I agree. And now open a contemporary smart phone interface, and show me, without any special tooling, the actual, "physical" file system. And these things are probably the most successful consumer computing platforms ever.

Re: Use Timestamps

#77

Post by majke »

Dan Luu famously doesn't have timestamps on the blog posts, like

https://danluu.com/cpu-bugs/

There is date on the index page Jan - 2016, however it's not obvious from the content page.

I think the argument is that the content should be corrected if it's outdated. So, it shouldn't matter when it was written.

Re: Use Timestamps

#78

Post by adrianvoica »

Yes. Yes. Yes. A million times, yes. I can't stress this enough: always put visible timestamps on all content (be it web or otherwise, online or offline) and current version number for any kind of software (apps, libraries, frameworks, etc.) on their info / landing / documentation pages. It should be immediately visible if a certain content is dated or not.

Some examples of software-related landing pages:

https://sindresorhus.com/caprine/ (Caprine app) - shows current version number

https://riot.js.org/ (Riot.js framework) - shows NPM badge with latest version number

... it's not so hard now, is it?

Re: Use Timestamps

#79

Post by account42 »

kstenerud wrote: post #49
bitzun wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox seems to always display the url after the protocol, even on mobile. I don't like the protocol omission, but I've grown to tolerate it.

Meh, everything's converged on https now, unless you're loading from file (in which case you probably know already). With any other scheme, the browser is going to pop up a massive DANGER WILL ROBINSON that you have to click through. The scheme is rather pointless to display in a browser bar nowadays.

Having a separate scheme for HTTPS was a mistake anyway. TLS should be a transport detail that doesn't change the URL at all just like DNSSEC, IPv6 and QUIC don't change the URL. The browser can still display the negotiated encryption and you need HSTS anyway to fully protect against downgrade attacks - and as older ciphers are broken even that is not going to be enough.

Re: Use Timestamps

#80

Post by avodonosov »

usrbinbash wrote: post #76
avodonosov wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

URL is a central concept in web browsing. Hiding it from users goes against the main usability principle that the user should understand what's going on. One does not need a technical background to understand URLs. Browser hiding URLs is like an OS hiding file system structure from users, because files and directories are "too technioal" for them.

> that the user should understand what's going on Sure he should. But design maxime of a lot of contemporary software does exactly the opposite: Hiding as much of the "icky techy stuff" from the user as possible. > One does not need a technical background to understand URLs. That's true, but doesn't change the fact that most people don't. For example, how many people know that the domain of an URL is organised right-…

> And now open a contemporary smart phone interface, and show me, without any special tooling, the actual, "physical" file system.

Yes, I had phones in mind when writting the above :)

> And these things are probably the most successful consumer computing platforms ever.

Users don't have better choice in this market.

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