The paragraph which you cite was copied verbatim from the web site.  Since
ISO says that Monday is the first day of the week, then the week having
January 1 on Thursday is indeed the first week, because Sunday of that
week, the last day according to ISO, would be January 4.  I can see where
the standard is nonsense.  If it was aimed at making the business week the
prime factor in the creation of the standard, then they missed.  The middle
of the week according to ISO, falls on Thursday and yet, there is not
anywhere near the amount of business being conducted on Saturday and Sunday
as there is on Monday through Friday.  That week Dave refers to should
belong to the preceding year as 60% of the business is conducted in that
year (3 days) as opposed to 40% in the new year (2 days.)  Do not delude
yourself into thinking that a lot of business is conducted on Saturdays.
 The Chairman of the ISO-8601 standard Technical Committee 154 is Mrs. I.
Burger-Balogh, a German, and I know for a fact that come noon on Saturday
in Germany, the shops are closed tight!

By having Sunday as the first day of the week and Saturday as the last day,
one sees where Wednesday is the middle of the week, and of the work week.
 The Germans even call Wednesday, Midwoch (mid-week)  Something Mrs.
Burger-Balogh forgets.  Now it becomes easy to decide what the standard
should be.  The week begins on a Sunday.  The week with the first Wednesday
in it, or which has 4 January in it, is the first week of the year.  For
the case of the year which starts on a Wednesday, that is still proper as
60% of the business would be conducted in that week.

This is what happens when you create standards and ignore history.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
Hicomp America, Inc.
[log in to unmask]        www.hicomp.com
(800) 323-8863   (281) 288-7438  fax: (281) 355-6879



-----Original Message-----
From:   David Largent [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Friday, June 20, 1997 9:09 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Week Numbers -- A Standard

Denys writes. . .
<Much informative text snipped!>
> An ordinal date is identified by a given day in a given year.  A week
> is identified by its number in a given year.  A week begins with a
> Monday (in a departure from the Gregorian calendar, my italics) and
> the first week of a year is the one which includes the first Thursday,
> or equivalently the one which includes January 4.

I'm lost on this last one...  If the first Thursday of a month is the
first, that would only provide three days of the calendar month in
the first week - or maybe I need to count Sunday in this instance,
since a week begins on Monday (in a departure from the Gregorian
calendar, his italics).

-dll  (maybe if I'd say my question outloud, I'd stumble into the
answer before I started typing )
David L. Largent                     "My thoughts are my own,
Information Services Manager          unless I choose to share them!"
The Gilbert Companies, Inc.          Phone: 765/284-4461
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