My plea to all Developers
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Yes. And I wish the USA will bite the bullet for once and all and drop the idiotic imperial system and go METRIC!
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
I hope you're aware that metric time isn't dd/mm/yyyy nor ISO8601 or similar. In the original metric system, 250 or so years ago, a week was ten days. And every day was divided into decidays and centidays. This (luckily?) didn't catch on. But in 1954 when they created the SI-system they settled for the second as a base for time. So metric time is measured in decasecond, hectosecond, kilosecond or megasecond or gigasecond. I prefer ISO8601! :)
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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Tony Hill wrote:
It is ordained that ...
Yea, verily! I've seen the light*, brother! :) * And it is an approaching train. Seriously, the only inherent advantages of the Metric system are that: 1. It eases conversions between units (cm in a kilometer is much easier to calculate than inches in a mile) 2. The Metric system has a MASS unit, while the Imperial system has a WEIGHT unit (of importance to natural scientists and to anyone or anything that goes into space) OTOH, only the US, Liberia, and Myanmar [still use the Imperial system](https://www.statista.com/chart/18300/countries-using-the-metric-or-the-imperial-system/), and the US, at least, uses a debased version where there are 16 fluid ounces to the pint, rather than the divinely ordained 20. Even in the US, scientists are taught the Metric system. I would say that the battle for metricization has been won.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
Apart from the fact the imperial system has nice familiar names there are no advantages to using imperial but I guess some people will never change. I am only glad we were using the metric system when I did my engineering college course as some of the other imperial units are completely nuts.
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Please, for the love of all things good in this world Stop using mm/dd/yyyy for the numerical date format Only the US, US jurisdictions, and Swahili in Kenya use this format, so 6/7/2021 means two completely different things to someone in the US and someone in the UK. Or NZ, Or Oz. Or, well, anywhere else really. Please: make dates unambiguous. Use month abbreviations like 6-Jul. Use yyyy-mm-dd if you have to. Or go crazy and sniff a user's preferences but that doesn't actually work because everyone in the US seems to think Canada uses the US format. Canada doesn't use the US format: It merely understands the US format which I find astounding. Show a Canadian 6/7 and they'll tell you the correct interpretation without context. It's a skill akin to national mind reading and I do not understand how they do it.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Please, for the love of all things good in this world Stop using mm/dd/yyyy for the numerical date format Only the US, US jurisdictions, and Swahili in Kenya use this format, so 6/7/2021 means two completely different things to someone in the US and someone in the UK. Or NZ, Or Oz. Or, well, anywhere else really. Please: make dates unambiguous. Use month abbreviations like 6-Jul. Use yyyy-mm-dd if you have to. Or go crazy and sniff a user's preferences but that doesn't actually work because everyone in the US seems to think Canada uses the US format. Canada doesn't use the US format: It merely understands the US format which I find astounding. Show a Canadian 6/7 and they'll tell you the correct interpretation without context. It's a skill akin to national mind reading and I do not understand how they do it.
cheers Chris Maunder
I've been using
"yyyy/mm/dd"for years, unless specifically told not to by my employer (which happens more often than you'd think).".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013 -
Yes this so much more logical and less idiotic than the metric system.
It is ordained that 3 grains of barley dry and round do make an inch, 12 inches make 1 foot, 3 feet make 1 yard, 5 yards and a half make a perch, and 40 perches in length and 4 in breadth make an acre.
But all the measurements are based on real objects that exist in the world about us. The metric system is just random numbers. For example who can remember (or visualise) that one meter is the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second?
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Please, for the love of all things good in this world Stop using mm/dd/yyyy for the numerical date format Only the US, US jurisdictions, and Swahili in Kenya use this format, so 6/7/2021 means two completely different things to someone in the US and someone in the UK. Or NZ, Or Oz. Or, well, anywhere else really. Please: make dates unambiguous. Use month abbreviations like 6-Jul. Use yyyy-mm-dd if you have to. Or go crazy and sniff a user's preferences but that doesn't actually work because everyone in the US seems to think Canada uses the US format. Canada doesn't use the US format: It merely understands the US format which I find astounding. Show a Canadian 6/7 and they'll tell you the correct interpretation without context. It's a skill akin to national mind reading and I do not understand how they do it.
cheers Chris Maunder
US method mirrors how it is said when spoken. We don't say "the sixth or April"; we say "April sixth" - and ergo, that is how we write it. How do you normally say that in Canada (for those parts that have both day and night). Even done numerically, only, we follow the spoken word. (both version put the year in the rear). In other languages they do say things like 'ersten Mai" - that's their problem and their way - I didn't bitch to them about changing the arse-backwards word order. That's their problem. Now, for the "Euro" version - it sorts like shyte . . . worse than the US version sorts, and that a turd and a half. The year should go first, then the month, then the day - a four-digit year, at that, lest, for example, something just over a century old be classified as very current. So that's that. I was going to use all-caps so the forgoing instructive blurb is taken and accepted as order that must be obeyed, but, feeling generous this morning I'll let you spend a bit more time adapting to before, well, THE SHIFT-LOCK.
"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 seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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As long as they will be things like national pride, country specific formats, as dumb as they may be, will not disappear. It will probably take decades to get rid of mm/dd/yyyy (which, while I understand the write-it-as-you-speak-it, has overall more disadvantages than advantages) It will take centuries to settle for imperial or metric ( I prefer metric because more straight forward to me, but I don't care as long as we settle for something) Flying cars is probably the only way of getting everybody to use the same side of the road for driving, and I am not even convinced about that. Maybe this will not be an issue anymore with autonomous driving.( You would not imagine what a waste of resources and time developing a left hand drive and right hand drive version of a car is). This, as well as many other things, would have been solved a long time ago if people had common sense. But ...
Rage wrote:
You would not imagine what a waste of resources and time developing a left hand drive and right hand drive version of a car is
The car needs to be able to do both; and it should know where to switch. There's people coming from England using the canal; if their cars only can drive left, you'd get very dangerous holidays and visits.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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context? Also, I agree if the app/site will never be used outside the United States (i.e. internal business apps and sites).
Slacker007 wrote:
context?
Probably he saw a date like 4/7 and was unsure if it was tomorrow, or 3 months from now.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius
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I've been using
"yyyy/mm/dd"for years, unless specifically told not to by my employer (which happens more often than you'd think).".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013#realJSOP wrote:
I've been using
"yyyy/mm/dd"for years, unless specifically told not to by my employer (which happens more often than you'd think).Same here. Unfortunately Duhsigners, ProderpOwners, and PointygramManagers live in a reality distortion field where everyone uses the same date format they do. At least those nitwits have no control over the backend, so it's `DateTimeOffset`s everywhere until the presentation code at least.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius
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US method mirrors how it is said when spoken. We don't say "the sixth or April"; we say "April sixth" - and ergo, that is how we write it. How do you normally say that in Canada (for those parts that have both day and night). Even done numerically, only, we follow the spoken word. (both version put the year in the rear). In other languages they do say things like 'ersten Mai" - that's their problem and their way - I didn't bitch to them about changing the arse-backwards word order. That's their problem. Now, for the "Euro" version - it sorts like shyte . . . worse than the US version sorts, and that a turd and a half. The year should go first, then the month, then the day - a four-digit year, at that, lest, for example, something just over a century old be classified as very current. So that's that. I was going to use all-caps so the forgoing instructive blurb is taken and accepted as order that must be obeyed, but, feeling generous this morning I'll let you spend a bit more time adapting to before, well, THE SHIFT-LOCK.
"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 seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
I hear that argument a lot ("we say it like...", and I hear "4th of July" a lot, too. If you say "July 4th" or "4th of July" then both are unambiguous. The point is that if you said "7/4" or "4/7" there's ambiguity for the rest of the world. My point is: avoiding ambiguity is pitifully easy in this case.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Yes. And I wish the USA will bite the bullet for once and all and drop the idiotic imperial system and go METRIC!
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
Canada is metric. That's why all temperatures are in F, weights in lb and heights in feet and inches. :doh:
cheers Chris Maunder
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But all the measurements are based on real objects that exist in the world about us. The metric system is just random numbers. For example who can remember (or visualise) that one meter is the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second?
It is not a random number, the metre was defined was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole (a real object) in 1798.
However because of the need for greater precision using light which is constant it throws up some odd numbers when we try and use it with the older historical measures and the same applies when using yards instead of metres after all who is going to remember that the speed of light travelled in a second is 327,857,019 yards.
Also time is not a physical object but a human construct based on observation of the days and seasons going back centuries.
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I hear that argument a lot ("we say it like...", and I hear "4th of July" a lot, too. If you say "July 4th" or "4th of July" then both are unambiguous. The point is that if you said "7/4" or "4/7" there's ambiguity for the rest of the world. My point is: avoiding ambiguity is pitifully easy in this case.
cheers Chris Maunder
"Fourth of July" is a bad example. We don't normally swap in a holiday name in place of the date. Using your date, however, the date, when fully enunciated, is "July Fourth Seventeen Seventy Six" and the reverse is rarely if used at all. The ambiguity however is in date formatting for non-technical usage (else, YYYYMMDD). That being said, the ambiguity would really exist in a local wherein the common idiom is in one order and the written version reverses that order. Jumping on the bandwagon to accommodate languages that use a reverse word order - why ? There is no ambiguity here - except for the (in our point of view) those who do it backwards elsewhere. I haven't spent enough time in Canada to know the common speech version. Perhaps this written format is a manifestation of yet another concession to Quebec ? What could be less ambiguous than to write something the same way it is said? We are on the proper side of the Atlantic - the "New World". Let the old world continue to fester in their traditions and take a fresh breath!
"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 seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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"Fourth of July" is a bad example. We don't normally swap in a holiday name in place of the date. Using your date, however, the date, when fully enunciated, is "July Fourth Seventeen Seventy Six" and the reverse is rarely if used at all. The ambiguity however is in date formatting for non-technical usage (else, YYYYMMDD). That being said, the ambiguity would really exist in a local wherein the common idiom is in one order and the written version reverses that order. Jumping on the bandwagon to accommodate languages that use a reverse word order - why ? There is no ambiguity here - except for the (in our point of view) those who do it backwards elsewhere. I haven't spent enough time in Canada to know the common speech version. Perhaps this written format is a manifestation of yet another concession to Quebec ? What could be less ambiguous than to write something the same way it is said? We are on the proper side of the Atlantic - the "New World". Let the old world continue to fester in their traditions and take a fresh breath!
"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 seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
We are on the proper side of the Atlantic - the "New World". Let the old world continue to fester in their traditions and take a fresh breath!
I draw your attention to the fact that the [Monroe Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe\_Doctrine) appears to have lapsed. As long as nations in the "New World" and the "Old World" trade, there will be a need for agreed weights and measures and agreed methods of representing them. In most modern languages*, units are typically written in decreasing order of size (5 dollars and 21 cents = $5.21; 4 pounds, 3 shillings, and 9 pence = £4 3s 9d; 5 yards, 2 feet, and 4 inches = 5yd 2' 4"), the only exception being time. This alone makes the non-ISO 8601 formats suspect. * I'm told that in Arabic numbers are written from the digits up - one and twenty and three hundred.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
We are on the proper side of the Atlantic - the "New World". Let the old world continue to fester in their traditions and take a fresh breath!
I draw your attention to the fact that the [Monroe Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe\_Doctrine) appears to have lapsed. As long as nations in the "New World" and the "Old World" trade, there will be a need for agreed weights and measures and agreed methods of representing them. In most modern languages*, units are typically written in decreasing order of size (5 dollars and 21 cents = $5.21; 4 pounds, 3 shillings, and 9 pence = £4 3s 9d; 5 yards, 2 feet, and 4 inches = 5yd 2' 4"), the only exception being time. This alone makes the non-ISO 8601 formats suspect. * I'm told that in Arabic numbers are written from the digits up - one and twenty and three hundred.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
First problem to address: French - cannot count to seventy in any rational manner. Arabic looks good at that point. Besides, aren't we taught arithmetic operations least-to-most significant digits? The unit argument you use would be good except for one thing: Dates are Labels ! For most common usage, I haven't heard about anyone in any date format using fractional months (for example). I mean, really, months vary in length and the full day labels include one of seven flavors. For that matter, the date is different in different parts of the globe (Greenwich is not the center of the universe). Noon happens when the sun's high. But perhaps your current date is April 63/4, 2021 or 6.75 April 2021 ? (or 25 Nisan 5781)
"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 seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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"Fourth of July" is a bad example. We don't normally swap in a holiday name in place of the date. Using your date, however, the date, when fully enunciated, is "July Fourth Seventeen Seventy Six" and the reverse is rarely if used at all. The ambiguity however is in date formatting for non-technical usage (else, YYYYMMDD). That being said, the ambiguity would really exist in a local wherein the common idiom is in one order and the written version reverses that order. Jumping on the bandwagon to accommodate languages that use a reverse word order - why ? There is no ambiguity here - except for the (in our point of view) those who do it backwards elsewhere. I haven't spent enough time in Canada to know the common speech version. Perhaps this written format is a manifestation of yet another concession to Quebec ? What could be less ambiguous than to write something the same way it is said? We are on the proper side of the Atlantic - the "New World". Let the old world continue to fester in their traditions and take a fresh breath!
"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 seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
You are on the Left (not proper) side of the Atlantic but still drive on the wrong side of the road. The "old" world civilisation clearly came before the "new" world civilization so should take precedence. Obviously when one says "4th of July, 1775" then the date should be 04/07/1775, as you USians say, duh!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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First problem to address: French - cannot count to seventy in any rational manner. Arabic looks good at that point. Besides, aren't we taught arithmetic operations least-to-most significant digits? The unit argument you use would be good except for one thing: Dates are Labels ! For most common usage, I haven't heard about anyone in any date format using fractional months (for example). I mean, really, months vary in length and the full day labels include one of seven flavors. For that matter, the date is different in different parts of the globe (Greenwich is not the center of the universe). Noon happens when the sun's high. But perhaps your current date is April 63/4, 2021 or 6.75 April 2021 ? (or 25 Nisan 5781)
"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 seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote:
(or 25 Nisan 5781)
24 Μάρτιος, 7529 έτος κόσμου :D Seriously, either arrangement - little-endian ([day fraction], day, month, year) or big-endian (year, month, day, [day fraction]) would be OK. What I object to is the "mixed-endian" representation used in the US. It is inconsistent with the way we (including the USians) represent all other measurements. [day fraction] stands for any method of representing a day fraction, whether a [decimal fraction], [hour, minute, second], or [second, minute, hour].
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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You are on the Left (not proper) side of the Atlantic but still drive on the wrong side of the road. The "old" world civilisation clearly came before the "new" world civilization so should take precedence. Obviously when one says "4th of July, 1775" then the date should be 04/07/1775, as you USians say, duh!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
� Forogar � wrote:
The "old" world civilisation clearly came before the "new" world civilization so should take precedence.
If this were consistently applied, we would today be in year 10279 of Xyzzy the Volcano Goddess, or some such. The question before the group is standardization; given that we must communicate and trade globally, it must be possible to unambiguously express numerical values such as dates. My personal preference is that all values be expressed in "big-endian" unit format - from largest unit to smallest. "little endian" would also be acceptable. What I object to is the USian special case of "middle-endian" for dates, and no other values.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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Canada is metric. That's why all temperatures are in F, weights in lb and heights in feet and inches. :doh:
cheers Chris Maunder
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"Fourth of July" is a bad example. We don't normally swap in a holiday name in place of the date. Using your date, however, the date, when fully enunciated, is "July Fourth Seventeen Seventy Six" and the reverse is rarely if used at all. The ambiguity however is in date formatting for non-technical usage (else, YYYYMMDD). That being said, the ambiguity would really exist in a local wherein the common idiom is in one order and the written version reverses that order. Jumping on the bandwagon to accommodate languages that use a reverse word order - why ? There is no ambiguity here - except for the (in our point of view) those who do it backwards elsewhere. I haven't spent enough time in Canada to know the common speech version. Perhaps this written format is a manifestation of yet another concession to Quebec ? What could be less ambiguous than to write something the same way it is said? We are on the proper side of the Atlantic - the "New World". Let the old world continue to fester in their traditions and take a fresh breath!
"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 seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
In military terms (my theme for the day), my advice for him would be: Suck it up! :) Do they still say "RDAH"?
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.