Do we, as developers, have a UI responsibility?
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I'm going through expenses, and for anyone living in Canada who doesn't have that weird Canada / US hardware translation unit built into their brain, it's painful. It's the dates. The US, alone, uses mm/dd/yy. The rest of the world except for Belize uses something vaguely sensible. Even Canada. Except Canada has a ton of systems imported directly from the US (or shares systems with their US parent companies) so lots of dates on things like receipts are in the form mm/dd/yy. Or they are dd/mm/yy. You can't tell. 06/07/17. Guess the date. Canadians can tell, just by looking at the date whether it's June or July. To me that's impossible yet they seem to do it. Somewhere a programmer decided to output the date this way. Either they just used the default date formatter or they deliberately choose a dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy format. 5 seconds of work would enable them to output in dd-MMM-yyyy or dd-MMM-yy or even yyyy-mm-dd or yy-mm-dd format. Either of which would allow a high level of accuracy in guessing the date. I'm sure they also thought, at the time, that their decision was a valid one. It wasn't, and it made me wonder whether we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously. Is this something you do? Is it something your lead actually stops you doing? Or is it something you've not really though of?
cheers Chris Maunder
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I'm going through expenses, and for anyone living in Canada who doesn't have that weird Canada / US hardware translation unit built into their brain, it's painful. It's the dates. The US, alone, uses mm/dd/yy. The rest of the world except for Belize uses something vaguely sensible. Even Canada. Except Canada has a ton of systems imported directly from the US (or shares systems with their US parent companies) so lots of dates on things like receipts are in the form mm/dd/yy. Or they are dd/mm/yy. You can't tell. 06/07/17. Guess the date. Canadians can tell, just by looking at the date whether it's June or July. To me that's impossible yet they seem to do it. Somewhere a programmer decided to output the date this way. Either they just used the default date formatter or they deliberately choose a dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy format. 5 seconds of work would enable them to output in dd-MMM-yyyy or dd-MMM-yy or even yyyy-mm-dd or yy-mm-dd format. Either of which would allow a high level of accuracy in guessing the date. I'm sure they also thought, at the time, that their decision was a valid one. It wasn't, and it made me wonder whether we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously. Is this something you do? Is it something your lead actually stops you doing? Or is it something you've not really though of?
cheers Chris Maunder
At school they called it "information science". We work with information, are responsible for it's correctness and validity when storing, as well as giving the correct output. We are, essentially, replacing paper-and-people-equivalent processes, in any form, that result in the same output. No-one outside the developer has any influence on how that is done, so ultimately, you're the one responsible - mayhaps not in a legal way, but that is an entirely different thing.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^][](X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett)
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I'm going through expenses, and for anyone living in Canada who doesn't have that weird Canada / US hardware translation unit built into their brain, it's painful. It's the dates. The US, alone, uses mm/dd/yy. The rest of the world except for Belize uses something vaguely sensible. Even Canada. Except Canada has a ton of systems imported directly from the US (or shares systems with their US parent companies) so lots of dates on things like receipts are in the form mm/dd/yy. Or they are dd/mm/yy. You can't tell. 06/07/17. Guess the date. Canadians can tell, just by looking at the date whether it's June or July. To me that's impossible yet they seem to do it. Somewhere a programmer decided to output the date this way. Either they just used the default date formatter or they deliberately choose a dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy format. 5 seconds of work would enable them to output in dd-MMM-yyyy or dd-MMM-yy or even yyyy-mm-dd or yy-mm-dd format. Either of which would allow a high level of accuracy in guessing the date. I'm sure they also thought, at the time, that their decision was a valid one. It wasn't, and it made me wonder whether we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously. Is this something you do? Is it something your lead actually stops you doing? Or is it something you've not really though of?
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously
Yes.
Chris Maunder wrote:
Is this something you do?
Yes.
Chris Maunder wrote:
Is it something your lead actually stops you doing?
No, and if he did I'd bite his head clean off.
#SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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I'm going through expenses, and for anyone living in Canada who doesn't have that weird Canada / US hardware translation unit built into their brain, it's painful. It's the dates. The US, alone, uses mm/dd/yy. The rest of the world except for Belize uses something vaguely sensible. Even Canada. Except Canada has a ton of systems imported directly from the US (or shares systems with their US parent companies) so lots of dates on things like receipts are in the form mm/dd/yy. Or they are dd/mm/yy. You can't tell. 06/07/17. Guess the date. Canadians can tell, just by looking at the date whether it's June or July. To me that's impossible yet they seem to do it. Somewhere a programmer decided to output the date this way. Either they just used the default date formatter or they deliberately choose a dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy format. 5 seconds of work would enable them to output in dd-MMM-yyyy or dd-MMM-yy or even yyyy-mm-dd or yy-mm-dd format. Either of which would allow a high level of accuracy in guessing the date. I'm sure they also thought, at the time, that their decision was a valid one. It wasn't, and it made me wonder whether we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously. Is this something you do? Is it something your lead actually stops you doing? Or is it something you've not really though of?
cheers Chris Maunder
Some developers are rebellious, and the guy (or girl, or gender neutral being) who thought up the US date format was probably just doing it to irritate us europeans !
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I'm going through expenses, and for anyone living in Canada who doesn't have that weird Canada / US hardware translation unit built into their brain, it's painful. It's the dates. The US, alone, uses mm/dd/yy. The rest of the world except for Belize uses something vaguely sensible. Even Canada. Except Canada has a ton of systems imported directly from the US (or shares systems with their US parent companies) so lots of dates on things like receipts are in the form mm/dd/yy. Or they are dd/mm/yy. You can't tell. 06/07/17. Guess the date. Canadians can tell, just by looking at the date whether it's June or July. To me that's impossible yet they seem to do it. Somewhere a programmer decided to output the date this way. Either they just used the default date formatter or they deliberately choose a dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy format. 5 seconds of work would enable them to output in dd-MMM-yyyy or dd-MMM-yy or even yyyy-mm-dd or yy-mm-dd format. Either of which would allow a high level of accuracy in guessing the date. I'm sure they also thought, at the time, that their decision was a valid one. It wasn't, and it made me wonder whether we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously. Is this something you do? Is it something your lead actually stops you doing? Or is it something you've not really though of?
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
whether we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously
Absolutely.
Chris Maunder wrote:
Is this something you do?
Always.
Chris Maunder wrote:
Is it something your lead actually stops you doing?
I am the lead. But if someone suggested that ambiguous display of dates was acceptable, I don't think they would last very long in our organization. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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I'm going through expenses, and for anyone living in Canada who doesn't have that weird Canada / US hardware translation unit built into their brain, it's painful. It's the dates. The US, alone, uses mm/dd/yy. The rest of the world except for Belize uses something vaguely sensible. Even Canada. Except Canada has a ton of systems imported directly from the US (or shares systems with their US parent companies) so lots of dates on things like receipts are in the form mm/dd/yy. Or they are dd/mm/yy. You can't tell. 06/07/17. Guess the date. Canadians can tell, just by looking at the date whether it's June or July. To me that's impossible yet they seem to do it. Somewhere a programmer decided to output the date this way. Either they just used the default date formatter or they deliberately choose a dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy format. 5 seconds of work would enable them to output in dd-MMM-yyyy or dd-MMM-yy or even yyyy-mm-dd or yy-mm-dd format. Either of which would allow a high level of accuracy in guessing the date. I'm sure they also thought, at the time, that their decision was a valid one. It wasn't, and it made me wonder whether we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously. Is this something you do? Is it something your lead actually stops you doing? Or is it something you've not really though of?
cheers Chris Maunder
I manipulate and persist dates/times in an unambiguous fashion. I present them according to the user's preferences as indicated by the Windows locale or other mechanism.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I'm going through expenses, and for anyone living in Canada who doesn't have that weird Canada / US hardware translation unit built into their brain, it's painful. It's the dates. The US, alone, uses mm/dd/yy. The rest of the world except for Belize uses something vaguely sensible. Even Canada. Except Canada has a ton of systems imported directly from the US (or shares systems with their US parent companies) so lots of dates on things like receipts are in the form mm/dd/yy. Or they are dd/mm/yy. You can't tell. 06/07/17. Guess the date. Canadians can tell, just by looking at the date whether it's June or July. To me that's impossible yet they seem to do it. Somewhere a programmer decided to output the date this way. Either they just used the default date formatter or they deliberately choose a dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy format. 5 seconds of work would enable them to output in dd-MMM-yyyy or dd-MMM-yy or even yyyy-mm-dd or yy-mm-dd format. Either of which would allow a high level of accuracy in guessing the date. I'm sure they also thought, at the time, that their decision was a valid one. It wasn't, and it made me wonder whether we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously. Is this something you do? Is it something your lead actually stops you doing? Or is it something you've not really though of?
cheers Chris Maunder
not forgetting degrees (temperature) and degrees angle. The latter is odd because almost all humans use the 0..360 whereas almost every math library uses radians - easy to visualise a 35 degree slope, but a .4 radians is how many? With pi an irrational number and computers not capable of doing infinite digits yet (not that long ago computers couldn't do over 6 dp very well) what a stupid choice that was. Another that's slipping is currency: starting to see single decimals popping up: i.e. $5.5 ... sure cents (pennies if you must) are annoying, but it's just being lazy to skip that last digit. (currently the temperature here is 298 degrees and my chair tilted at about .1 degrees, just the way this grumpy irrational old man likes it.)
Sin tack the any key okay
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not forgetting degrees (temperature) and degrees angle. The latter is odd because almost all humans use the 0..360 whereas almost every math library uses radians - easy to visualise a 35 degree slope, but a .4 radians is how many? With pi an irrational number and computers not capable of doing infinite digits yet (not that long ago computers couldn't do over 6 dp very well) what a stupid choice that was. Another that's slipping is currency: starting to see single decimals popping up: i.e. $5.5 ... sure cents (pennies if you must) are annoying, but it's just being lazy to skip that last digit. (currently the temperature here is 298 degrees and my chair tilted at about .1 degrees, just the way this grumpy irrational old man likes it.)
Sin tack the any key okay
Actually I'm not sure why we don't stick to more fundamental units like that. 2π rad = a full circle - what could be easier? And frankly I'd be happy to switch to Kelvin if it meant never having to look at another negative temperature.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote:
we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously
Yes.
Chris Maunder wrote:
Is this something you do?
Yes.
Chris Maunder wrote:
Is it something your lead actually stops you doing?
No, and if he did I'd bite his head clean off.
#SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
:thumbsup:
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Actually I'm not sure why we don't stick to more fundamental units like that. 2π rad = a full circle - what could be easier? And frankly I'd be happy to switch to Kelvin if it meant never having to look at another negative temperature.
cheers Chris Maunder
I'd be happy just to never feel another negative temperature.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I'd be happy just to never feel another negative temperature.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
It seems we've come 2π rad. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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It seems we've come 2π rad. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
:laugh: Now you're just being obtuse.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment "Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst "I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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:laugh: Now you're just being obtuse.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment "Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst "I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
What's your angle? /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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What's your angle? /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
That's acute one.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment "Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst "I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Some developers are rebellious, and the guy (or girl, or gender neutral being) who thought up the US date format was probably just doing it to irritate us europeans !
RickZeeland wrote:
probably just doing it to irritate us europeans !
In that case, I shall restore my support for the mm/dd/yyyy format!
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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That's acute one.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment "Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst "I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
Maybe, but there are degrees of cute. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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I'm going through expenses, and for anyone living in Canada who doesn't have that weird Canada / US hardware translation unit built into their brain, it's painful. It's the dates. The US, alone, uses mm/dd/yy. The rest of the world except for Belize uses something vaguely sensible. Even Canada. Except Canada has a ton of systems imported directly from the US (or shares systems with their US parent companies) so lots of dates on things like receipts are in the form mm/dd/yy. Or they are dd/mm/yy. You can't tell. 06/07/17. Guess the date. Canadians can tell, just by looking at the date whether it's June or July. To me that's impossible yet they seem to do it. Somewhere a programmer decided to output the date this way. Either they just used the default date formatter or they deliberately choose a dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy format. 5 seconds of work would enable them to output in dd-MMM-yyyy or dd-MMM-yy or even yyyy-mm-dd or yy-mm-dd format. Either of which would allow a high level of accuracy in guessing the date. I'm sure they also thought, at the time, that their decision was a valid one. It wasn't, and it made me wonder whether we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously. Is this something you do? Is it something your lead actually stops you doing? Or is it something you've not really though of?
cheers Chris Maunder
The question seems a bit odd to me in that, since I never went to computer school, I always assumed the point of a UI is to give the user what they want. I've often returned SQL date, for example, as, LEFT(datefield, 11), which gave MMM DD, YYYY automatically (as long as one remembers to sort by the real datetime values). Or, really, anything else the user needs to look at should be made intelligible. Otherwise, the calls come in and it has to be changed. From my point of view, the European convention, dd-mm-yyyy (regardless of delimiters) is every bit as dumb as the US convention: it won't sort correctly with a pain in the ass. So - I've taken to YYYYMMDD, or, for human readable, YYYY.MM.DD, when it's for my use. Big Endian, I think, is surely the way to go for dates.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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Maybe, but there are degrees of cute. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
This is just going to go around in circles.
cheers Chris Maunder
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I'm going through expenses, and for anyone living in Canada who doesn't have that weird Canada / US hardware translation unit built into their brain, it's painful. It's the dates. The US, alone, uses mm/dd/yy. The rest of the world except for Belize uses something vaguely sensible. Even Canada. Except Canada has a ton of systems imported directly from the US (or shares systems with their US parent companies) so lots of dates on things like receipts are in the form mm/dd/yy. Or they are dd/mm/yy. You can't tell. 06/07/17. Guess the date. Canadians can tell, just by looking at the date whether it's June or July. To me that's impossible yet they seem to do it. Somewhere a programmer decided to output the date this way. Either they just used the default date formatter or they deliberately choose a dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy format. 5 seconds of work would enable them to output in dd-MMM-yyyy or dd-MMM-yy or even yyyy-mm-dd or yy-mm-dd format. Either of which would allow a high level of accuracy in guessing the date. I'm sure they also thought, at the time, that their decision was a valid one. It wasn't, and it made me wonder whether we as developers have a responsibility to ensure that the information we present to the world is always presented unambiguously. Is this something you do? Is it something your lead actually stops you doing? Or is it something you've not really though of?
cheers Chris Maunder
My problem with the dd/mm/yy format is there's a lot less numbers you make into math holidays. :) In speaking the dates, Americans tend to say something along the lines of "August 4, 2017", in which case our format of mm/dd/yy makes sense. Do you non-Americans say it differently?
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This is just going to go around in circles.
cheers Chris Maunder
I have a bone to pick with you - my radius. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
