Talk:DateTime

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I think this needs usage outside of programming languages, seeing as we consider these "not English". -- Prince Kassad 21:34, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

It's easy to find uses in English, e.g. This method returns a DateTime representing the first day of the month represented by the instance it is called on. (http://iridescence.no/post/A-Set-of-Useful-Extension-Methods-for-DateTime.aspx) or Convert a UNIX timestamp to a datetime with MySQL (http://www.electrictoolbox.com/mysql-unix-timestamp-to-datetime/). These sentences are written in English, not in a programming language. Lmaltier 16:21, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Right, this is probably attestable. - -sche (discuss) 18:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

An observation: this capitalisation is used for the data type in the Microsoft .NET Framework. In most other places it is written datetime or DATETIME. Equinox ◑ 13:59, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid we are opening a Pandora's box here. There are tons of programming languages. Each of them defines a very limited set of primary types (int, float, char, string, struct, class, etc.) which are generally common to all of them, despite different spellings (i.e an integer type may be named Integer, integer, int, uint32, etc.). But those programming languages also come with a huge set of libraries which define secondary types that are either an alias (renaming) of a primary type, or a composition/aggregation of primary types (via a class, a structure, a union, etc.) that yields to a more complex type.

DateTime belongs to this latter category. In a technical blog or a programming manual, any of those types may be put in a valid English sentence like the one above found by Lmaltier. Like any brand name in real life ("you should buy a Zyxw", "use a Zyxw for this task"). And here is the catch. If you accept DateTime now, you open the door to hundreds of type names per programming languages, and there are dozens of them that are commonly used now.

Think about it twice. int, float, char, string, class have their place here, because they are so common and so generic that they are used in any context, even when the actual types have another name (i.e. you could say "use an int instead of a float" in a discussion about a programming language where the integer and floating point numbers are actually named "Integer" and "Double", and this will be perfectly understood). OTOH, types and classes of the second category have nothing to do in the wiktionary, not only because they are specific to one programming language but, above all, because they belong to one of its satellite libraries. — Xavier, 12:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, and don't think this is very worthwhile entry, but would point out that datetime isn't specific to one programming language. They exist with this name not just in .NET (which itself comprises many languages) but also in Perl, PHP, SQL... Equinox ◑ 13:39, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

This is purely coincidental. Anyone who knows Perl, also knows there are numerous ways of doing each thing, and concerning dates, DateTime is only one of them and this is not the mostly used. There is no DateTime in standard SQL but you may find DATETIME in some databases or in non standard extensions. This is the same for any open-source language: sooner or later, if it is not already provided with the language, someone will come with a class or library and name it DateTime. This does not prove anything.

To have its place in this dictionary, I personally believe that datetime should be a generic common noun. This implies that

1. it should be written in lower case (this is not the case for DateTime)
2. we should be able to find citations where datetime (in minuscule) is used generically, not by naming an existing class/type by the same name (this is not the case for the two citations above given by Lmaltier)

So, firstly rename DateTime to datetime and next, let's find citations for datetime. — Xavier, 18:36, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I deleted the entry because there were no citations in the entry. If you'd like to cite some form of it, feel free. - -sche (discuss) 21:07, 15 October 2011 (UTC)