[Python-Dev] dateutil

[Gareth McCaughan]

On Friday 2004-03-12 08:29, Brett C. wrote:

[Gustavo:]
>  > * Computing of Easter Sunday dates for any given year,
>  >   using Western, Orthodox or Julian algorithms;

[Brett:]
> Don't really see the use in this other than the rule figuring this out
> is odd enough that I never remember.  Who really cares when Easter is
> beyond certain religious groups?

People living in countries where some public holidays are relative
to Easter. (For instance, in the UK there's a "bank holiday"
on Good Friday, defined as the Friday immediately preceding
Easter Sunday.) People who like some of the (not particularly
religious) traditions that have become attached to Easter and
to related dates. (For instance, I know some very outspoken
atheists who hold a party every year on Shrove Tuesday and,
in accordance with tradition, serve pancakes.)

Anyway, the "certain religious groups" you mention include
something like 1/5 of the world's population, and probably
at least 5% of the Python userbase. There are probably as
many Python users who care about the date of Easter as there
are who care about Enigma-like encryption or reading IFF
chunked data or using QuickTime on a Macintosh.

-- 
g