The "Right" Date format

[GreggB]

While we are arguing about the first day of the week, let's open the subject of date formats for "discussion".

My position: YYYY-MM-DD is the only format that makes any sense, at least in a computer environment. Furthermore, I don't understand how any programmer could bring themselves to produce code that puts out MM/DD/YY, unless they are forced to do so by user specs. (which I have ignored on occasion). Well, ok, I understand that they do it without really thinking about it, because that's what they've seen all of their life - but doing things without thinking is not a good trait in a programmer.

I have two major annoyances regarding date formatting - the first is that inspite of me changing my locale settings, certain programmes (such as KSystemLog) totally ignore my preference and continue to use MM/DD/YY. The second is related to the fact that I live in Canada - if you see 02/03/04 in the UK, you know it's 2004-03-02; if you are in the US, you know that it is 2004-02-03; if you live in Canada, all bets are off.

Gregg.

BTW - Forgive my strident tone - but I am trying to start an argument

[ebvt]

Beware of people who say "my position is the only true position"!

ebvt

[muungwana]

as a swahili speaker who thinks primarily in swahili, i would read "02/03/04" as "tarehe mbili mwezi wa tatu elfu mbili na nne".

"tarehe" means "date"
"mwezi" means "month"
"mbili" means "two"
"tatu" means "three"
"elfu" means "thousand"
"na" means "and"
"nne" means "four".

The sentence then literately translate to "second day of the third month,two thousand and four".Any other arrangement in swahili would simply not rhyme would be difficult to speak out.

I think the year should always be last,or at the very least,should have 4 digits to be explicit about the year part.
I also think the month should be in words to be explicit what part of the date is month.

Different parts of the world arrange the same information differently and any person with international view of the world would be explicit in their date representation.

[GreggB]

Any other arrangement in swahili would simply not rhyme would be difficult to speak out.

I do have a certain sympathy for day-month-year - at least it is hierarchical (but useless in a computer). But month-day-year is inside-out - no rhyme or reason.

Gregg.

[Lucky Blue]

I can handle:
  yy mmm d
  d mmm yy
  mmm d yy
  or  even  mmm year  day   
  or   day  year  month  if you want
But please,  spell out the month in letters..

[pags]

I use YYYY-MM-DD in my computer, because then it knows how to sort them (i.e., when I copy pictures from my camera, I put them in directories like 2012-01-24, or 2012-11-06, and then they get listed in the correct order).  This also allows easier manipulation with calculations in scripts, etc.

However, when dealing with people with different regional backgrounds, etc. then a textual month is preferred (less ambiguity), so 2012-Jan-24 (or any other arrangement, such as Jan. 24, 2012).

$0.05 (getting ready for when Canada turfs the penny).

[jaydot]

I do have a certain sympathy for day-month-year - at least it is hierarchical (but useless in a computer). But month-day-year is inside-out - no rhyme or reason.

Gregg.

i've highlighted the relevant bit.  would you explain why?

[Bald Brick]

My position: YYYY-MM-DD is the only format that makes any sense, at least in a computer environment.

No it isn't. But it may be more rational than the alternatives. Nevertheless I think that making it an international standard was a mistake.

Consider how it came about.

The US and a few other countries wrote month/day/year; for the most part the rest of the world wrote day.month.year (although the separator varied).

This was obviously confusing. But neither the US nor the rest of the world were willing to give up their time-honoured format.  Enters ISO with a compromise solution. The Americans wouldn't have use the European notation and the Europeans wouldn't have to use an American one; instead everybody would use a more rational notation tailored for computers, the international standard: year-month-day.

It's just that in everyday use the US kept their old notation and so did Europe (with one exception) and many other parts of the world.

So now we have three standards instead of two: one for Japan and Sweden and very few other countries, one for the US, and one for Europe and quite a number of countries outside Europe. And the result of this stab at standardisation was even greater confusion.

Forgive my strident tone - but I am trying to start an argument  

Please forgive mine too - I'm trying to convince people that you are wrong....    

But please,  spell out the month in letters..

+1

[muungwana]

My position: YYYY-MM-DD is the only format that makes any sense, at least in a computer environment.

No it isn't. But it may be more rational than the alternatives. Nevertheless I think that making it an international standard was a mistake.

Consider how it came about.

The US and a few other countries wrote month/day/year; for the most part the rest of the world wrote day.month.year (although the separator varied).

This was obviously confusing. But neither the US nor the rest of the world were willing to give up their time-honoured format.  Enters ISO with a compromise solution. The Americans wouldn't have use the European notation and the Europeans wouldn't have to use an American one; instead everybody would use a more rational notation tailored for computers, the international standard: year-month-day.

It's just that in everyday use the US kept their old notation and so did Europe (with one exception) and many other parts of the world.

So now we have three standards instead of two: one for Japan and Sweden and very few other countries, one for the US, and one for Europe and quite a number of countries outside Europe. And the result of this stab at standardisation was even greater confusion.

this reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/927/

[Bald Brick]

this reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/927/

Precisely!  

You could have linked directly to the image:

[GreggB]

I do have a certain sympathy for day-month-year - at least it is hierarchical (but useless in a computer).

i've highlighted the relevant bit.  would you explain why?

It doesn't sort.

day-month-year has a certain validity as an output format - the smallest unit may be at the wrong end from a numerical perspective, but at least it is at the outside position. month-day-year on the other hand puts the smallest unit in the middle - that makes about as much sense as Roman numerals, which last time I checked had fallen out of favour for practical reasons. (I believe IBM has even dropped the CRN instruction from the /360 instruction set.[mainframe assembler joke])

There will never be any kind of agreement on this (any more than the proper alignment of curly braces). However, I think we can all agree that programmers should be writing code that respects the locale of the user. That way we can all have the date the way we want it.

Gregg.

[arjaybe]

When I was involved in setting up a database at one of my workplaces, I insisted that the dates be in the (numerical) year-month-day format so they could be usefully sorted.  When I talk about the date I tend to say it month-day-year - November twenty-third, 2012.  Too often in my daily tasks I'm faced with something like this: 09/10/11.  What date is that?  Whoever is presenting the date should do us all the courtesy of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding, rather than expecting everyone to intuitively understand what they're thinking.  As far as I'm concerned, the format 2012/11/23 has the best chance of being understood without inserting the non-numerical "Nov."  I find the worst confusion when the year is placed last and I can't tell whether it starts with the day or the month.

Summary: When presenting the date, assume your reader won't know what you mean.

[jaydot]

gregg and arjaybe, i get your point and concur.  the year/month/day format is unambiguous.

[ppiklapp]

Everyone says that Americans to it this way, Europeans do it that way.  That is incorrect.  I follow dd-mm-yr method and always have.  When putting a date on-line, I use numbers, because we don't have a standardized calendar naming process.  Different strokes for different folks.  I know several people that follow a stardate system inspired by Star Trek.  Maybe none of us have it right and the Mayans were correct, for the most part, as long as the people you are communicating with understand it, you're good.

[Crow]

Day/Month/Year  is the only that makes sense

At least for me

I've used it 50 years.