Rowan Collins wrote:
On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 17:42:13 +0530, Rohan Sharma gates.plusplus@gmail.com wrote:
On the message-changing: I don't know, I take it this that has not been a common issue?
Well, as you said in your original mail, there aren't many places in the world which *require* anything other than a number of hours. I've certainly never come across anyone else *mentionning* the problem/confusion, but it's hard to tell how many people will have shrugged and assumed it's not possible.
I've long noticed that when websites let you choose a UTC offset, there's frequently no provision for going in anything other than one-hour increments. I'd imagine that Newfies and the like may be prone to assuming they can't enter something other than a number of hours, especially when the text on the page implies they can't.
Since it *is* possible, though, and since, according to Tim, you can enter "1.5", which is still a "number of hours", I'd say it's not exactly a high priority to change the message.
Unless you're a programmer, you're unlikely to think of "1.5" when told "a number of hours", especially if you're used to dealing with poorly-written and <somecountry>-specific software that breaks if you treat it as remotely intelligent (see also: most web applications).
I think the message should be changed to "amount of time (hh:mm)", which is both more correct and more explicit.