Hebrew calendar software creators: can you notify this list when updating the calendar?

[Stan Goodman]

At 23:29:06 on Tuesday Tuesday 25 May 2010, Oleg Goldshmidt 
<pub at goldshmidt.org> wrote:
> "Nadav Har'El" <nyh at math.technion.ac.il> writes:
> > I still believe that the whole approach of having holidays of a
> > single year (it doesn't matter if 2007 or 2010) is wrong. It not only
> > means that the distro needs to update this list every year, it also
> > means that you can't find out when next year's holidays are (and
> > sometimes "next year" could be next month).
> >
> > So I'd look for a way to somehow use a "calendar.judaic" file which
> > contains holidays for multiple years (I have no idea if that's
> > possible).
>
> It must be. I am not an expert on Hebrew calendar, but I use XEmacs
> calendar and I have never had any problem finding out holiday dates
> and stuff for any year, not just the current one.
>
> A quick check shows that the solution is in
>
> /usr/share/xemacs/xemacs-packages/lisp/calendar/cal-hebrew.el
>
> (there is a corresponding GNU emacs file), which says
>
> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
>
> ;;; cal-hebrew.el --- calendar functions for the Hebrew calendar
>
> ;; Copyright (C) 1995, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
> ;;   Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>
> ;; Author: Nachum Dershowitz <nachum at cs.uiuc.edu>
> ;;      Edward M. Reingold <reingold at cs.uiuc.edu>
> ;; Maintainer: Glenn Morris <rgm at gnu.org>
> ;; Keywords: calendar
> ;; Human-Keywords: Hebrew calendar, calendar, diary
>
> <GNU license stuff snipped - OG>
>
> ;;; Synched up with: FSF Emacs 22 CVS 2007-03-30
>
> ;;; Commentary:
>
> ;; This collection of functions implements the features of calendar.el
> and ;; diary.el that deal with the Hebrew calendar.
>
> ;; Technical details of all the calendrical calculations can be found
> in ;; ``Calendrical Calculations: The Millennium Edition'' by Edward M.
> Reingold ;; and Nachum Dershowitz, Cambridge University Press (2001).
>
> ;; Comments, corrections, and improvements should be sent to
> ;;  Edward M. Reingold               Department of Computer Science
> ;;  (217) 333-6733                   University of Illinois at
> Urbana-Champaign ;;  reingold at cs.uiuc.edu             1304 West
> Springfield Avenue ;;                                   Urbana,
> Illinois 61801
>
> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
>
> So, the people who implemented it for X?Emacs wrote a book on how to
> do it - easy to find on Amazon as
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Calendrical-Calculations-Nachum-Dershowitz/dp/052
>1702380/ref=dp_ob_title_bk?ie=UTF8&qid=1274819022&sr=1-1
>
> - and I do not see anything in the code that would limit it to a
> particular year.
>
> Without any further research, I have to agree with Nadav - anybody who
> does anything year-specific does something wrong.
>
> By the way, the code seems to give the right "parasha" name - another
> question that I recall was asked on this forum relatively recently.

But parahot are not always the same in Israel and in the Diaspora.

-- 
Stan Goodman
Qiryat Tiv'on
Israel