This is also a programming question too...

I want as many as possible opinions. But do think about it for a while! Please don't simply vote for something because somebody else voted for it or because it has the most votes, as that will not help me at all.

I don't want to give much technical background on this, as that might influence how you vote.

The question is regarding counting how much time there is to go.

First poll I create would be to tell me what you think the result might be for a count towards a date (and again, there is no really right or wrong solution, both are perfect valid if you think about it)...

Let's say it is february 29th, 2004 and you have a special dinner on march 1st, 2005. What do you aspect to see in a countdown?

A) 1 year and 1 day to go (because february 29th 2004 + 1 day = march 1st 2004. And that + 1 year = march 1st 2005)
B) 1 year and 0 days to go (because february 29th 2004 + 1 year =  february 29th 2005, which doesn't exist, and thus becomes march 1st 2005)

Or to put it in another way. If it is february 29th, 2004 and you see in a countdown "1 year and 1 day to go", what does your gut feeling say the target date would be?
A) march 1st 2005
B) march 2nd 2005

Additional example for both methods:
Still same current date (february 29th, 2004), but now our dinner is on february 28th, 2005:
A) Method A from above will give you: 11 months, 28 days to go
B) Method B from above will give you: 11 months, 30 days to go



note 1: this isn't an issue about including or not including the current day into the calculation.
The current day is not included in neither count. If it was, the options would be:
    A) 1 year 2 days.
    B) 1 year 1 day.
So the questions (and dilemma) still remains...

note 2: every other futur date calculation for other months can be done with both calculation methods and the result will always be the same for both methods. So it isn't either a matter of what method calculates the other dates correctly, as both methods will...

note 3: but don't calculate too much! The answers I want must come from the gut so to speak; The meaning of this poll is if you see something like that on an ad on the street, what would your gut feeling say without to much thinking about it...

1yr + 0 days is my option

But if you were to go from say febuary 28th 2003 to march 31 2004 then thatd be 1yr for feb 28 2003 to 2004 and another 2 days for march 1st 2004

Btw cookie, its Febuary not februari

Update: For that second senario, my answer remains the same. Method B it is. 11 months 30 days

I have made my conclution by this simple thinking.

You have a dinner tomaro so do you go in 1 day or 2 days? of course 1 day and also there is how I say it in general when im counting dates I do not count the day that im in, but count the day in bettween and the dy that i must be there

Hmm... interesting...

To me, it makes more sense for the larger units to be added first (years > days) so I chose option B.

quote:

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Originally posted by ValSpy
I have made my conclution by this simple thinking.

You have a dinner tomaro so do you go in 1 day or 2 days? of course 1 day and also there is how I say it in general when im counting dates I do not count the day that im in, but count the day in bettween and the dy that i must be there

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To me option B is the correct one as you don't count a "non existing" calendar day.

That day on the calendar only exists once every 4 years (leap year). This is done to correct the calendar's alignment with the earth's motion around the sun...a year has 365.2422 days, so the additional 0.2422 days have to be corrected at some point.

bump (all those new (spam) threads... grrrr )

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anyways, I again want to stress on the fact that this dilemma is not about including or not the starting day in the count. In both methods the starting day is not included... If it was the options would simply become
  A) 1 year and 2 days
  B) 1 year and 1 day

So, that isn't the issue and the dilemma still remains...

It is about how you calculate to get the target time; if somebody said: "in 1 year x days I will go to dinner", do you first add the days or do you first add the years to know the date that he meant.

For once, you can vote the way your heart/guts will tell you how you would do it in every day life without thinking about it

Option B just seem to make more sense to me

Nice dilemma...

Technically it would be B, but when you're just talking to someone it would be A. So both are correct to me...

I would use option B. I count "one year" as 365 days. If you add 365 calendar days to February 29 2004 you end up with March the first, 2005.

Contradictory to this however, if it were 29-2-04 and somebody was to ask me "What are you doing in one year and one day from now?" I would probably assume they were talking about March 1st, 2005.

Similar to how ValSpy pointed out, if it was 29-2-04 and you added 4 years and 0 days, you would still end up with February 29 (2008), whereas adding four years and one day would conclude with the date being March the first, also in 2008.

Sorry to argue both sides here, it really is a good dilemma

My final 'gut' answer is option B, but only in the case where it is going from one leap year to the next 'non-leap' year.

Note: Does the title suggest there are going to be other dilemmas?

quote:

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Originally posted by haydn
I would use option B. I count "one year" as 365 days. If you add 365 calendar days to February 29 2004 you end up with March the first, 2005.

Contradictory to this however, if it were 29-2-04 and somebody was to ask me "What are you doing in one year and one day from now?" I would probably assume they were talking about March 1st, 2005.

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quote:

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Originally posted by haydn
My final 'gut' answer is option B, but only in the case where it is going from one leap year to the next 'non-leap' year.

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quote:

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Originally posted by John Anderton
Btw cookie, its Febuary not februari

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quote:

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Originally posted by haydn
Contradictory to this however, if it were 29-2-04 and somebody was to ask me "What are you doing in one year and one day from now?" I would probably assume they were talking about March 1st, 2005.

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quote:

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Originally posted by WDZ
To me, it makes more sense for the larger units to be added first (years > days) so I chose option B.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Tochjo
Basically, adding a year does not change the date, it changes the year. So to change the date you would also have to add that one day as well. Like if you'd add a month to February 15th you'd end up on March 15th - still the 15th, just another month. The same goes for July 15th to August 15th. Now, there's a different amount of days between Feb15 and March15 than between Jul15 and Aug15, but that doesn't matter - that's rather irrelevant. So if we use the same reasons here, it's answer A you get.

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quote:

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Originally posted by John Anderton
Dont tell me that if you were leaving on the 31st of march and coming back on the 1st of Janmay you would say that ill be back in precisely 1 month and 1 day
You will return in 1 month and 0 days.

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quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised

quote:

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Originally posted by John Anderton
Dont tell me that if you were leaving on the 31st of march and coming back on the 1st of Janmay you would say that ill be back in precisely 1 month and 1 day
You will return in 1 month and 0 days.

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Is that really so? What if you left on april 1st... wouldn't that be "1 month and 0 days" to come to the date 'may 1st'?

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I see you need this for that Holiday countdown plugin

I've done a lot of additional research regarding this and the thing I've found is that all sources regarding this subject avoid this kind of calculation. Even the ISO standards avoid this.

There is no real clear definition of how one should calculate or deal with this kind of date differences. If differences between dates are calculated it is never done in "years" or "months".

Nevertheless, in the updated Holiday Counter Plugin I've used method B as described in this thread (and seemingly prefered by most, not always for the good reasons but still...). Method A is available as well, as also two analytical methods where months and years have a fixed amount of days.