Why not an UN resolution for..
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You do realise that you are talking about time spans now? Sorry for being pedantic here. I see your point but being an engineer and developer I have switched to the standardised formats long time ago even in "real" life (e.g. when signing papers requiring also the date). If you want to target users from all over the world, you have to use a general format understood by (hopefully) all of them. Everybody has to use something new from time to time. I'm not an American but understanding the ISO date format should be no problem compared with the changings to the metric system. As a developer you are free to provide such data in any or multiple formats. An example might be the posting dates here at CodeProject which are provided as time spans for short periods (hours ago, yesterday) and the date for older posts.
Dates themselves are no more than a span of time relative to your current. The bigger question is who these time spans are important to. If it's a computer than UNIX time is superior to any of the aforementioned formats. If it's a human then you need to account for human ways in which they judge and measure the format. My argument is precisely that. It's slightly a goal-post move but to hit on the ISO mention: just because something exists doesn't inherently mean it's right. EDIT: Off-topic but it's worth mentioning that even though I use the Imperial System for measurement (you have to in the US), I actually vehemently agree with the Metric System being more reasonable.
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The most important part is the day. If you have an appointment on the 13th, then you need to know that it is tomorrow. If you think I have an appointment in June then you will likely miss it.
If I have an appointment on the next Wednesday I don't need to know the absolute day, month, or year. It's tomorrow. EDIT: Actually in this specific case I see where you're coming from in that if you have an appointment in the future for, say 26/10, the day is important. But at the same time, a month is restricted by 12, a day by anywhere from 28-31. Wouldn't you rather know Wednesday in October (4 options) vs the 26th 4th week (12 options)?
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Some of it was profiteering, yes - but a lot was behind the scenes and wasn't. I spent a lot of time, effort, (and money) in late 90's making sure that all the systems in company I had just joined as Technical Manager (i.e. responsible for everything more complicated than a mains plug) were going to work on Jan 1st 2000, and replacing those that wouldn't. And that meant exhaustive testing on the Unix box that ran the company accounts (Accounts software: fail. Accounts system OS: fail. Accounts system hardware: Oh :Elephant:, Oh :Elephant:, Oh :Elephant:, fail, fail, fail. Can I get it back up by Monday?) followed by new software selection, implementation, data transfer, training, and parallel running as well as new software to produce management accounts summaries in a format they could understand. The reason very little failed on Jan 1 worldwide was that a huge amount of effort went into making sure they wouldn't ... :laugh:
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640 Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
I also ended up correcting a fair number of serious bugs in my company's software related to this issue. Regrettably, no profiteering on my part, since I was salary. Maybe next time, in the unlikely event its still necessary, when the original 32 bit Unix clock runs out in 2038 :)
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standardizing the date formats and just keep it as one. The shorter, longer, the too longer all these differences are fine. I'm just talking about the completely opposite types like MM-DD-YY DD-MM-YY YY-MM-DD This is seriously freaking tiring to handle. All the data sheet exported from system are in MM-DD-YY format, and the customer read them all as DD-MM-YY & feeds into their own internal system. Yeah I head you saying "This is what localization is supposed to fix". But why? why not we fix this in peoples minds and make them follow a unified type. :sigh: :doh:
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy Falcon.
The best convention is the number of seconds elapsed since 01.04.1972 : sssssssssssssssssssssssssss. No problem by export / import.
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Careful - the euro-standard is just uniformly ass-backwards. D-M-Y (any number of digits you prefer) sorts totally wrong. Period. YYYYMMDD is the only rational format as it can be sorted as is, even as text - but can be stored/sorted as an int. (I leave off proper date objects as they'd sort regardless). Just the usual Eurogance (the now and forever word for European arrogance). Time you just get over yourselves. Get some laxatives - clear your thoughts.
"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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Careful - the euro-standard is just uniformly ass-backwards. D-M-Y (any number of digits you prefer) sorts totally wrong. Period. YYYYMMDD is the only rational format as it can be sorted as is, even as text - but can be stored/sorted as an int. (I leave off proper date objects as they'd sort regardless). Just the usual Eurogance (the now and forever word for European arrogance). Time you just get over yourselves. Get some laxatives - clear your thoughts.
"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
W∴ Balboos wrote:
Careful - the euro-standard is just uniformly ass-backwards.
The Euro-standard sorts perfectly - if you write from right to left. :) You guys just need to learn Hebrew!
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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It was a fair bit of both, in truth. Yes, there was an awful lot of genuine work involved but equally there were an awful lot of "consultants" lining their pockets by spreading the fear. For my part, I did very well out of it working on a project for a very large organisation to temporarily migrate their ERP system for the two years across the millennium because SAP were reluctant to guarantee millennium compliance. Was that money well spent? I rather suspect that any problems arising from not doing it could have been sorted out by a bit of overtime for the finance team. Either way, I was rather glad that developers of yore were so short-sighted and/or strapped for disk-space!
98.4% of statistics are made up on the spot.
I am surprised because SAP was touted as the solution to the Y2K problem in the US and was bought by many customers.
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standardizing the date formats and just keep it as one. The shorter, longer, the too longer all these differences are fine. I'm just talking about the completely opposite types like MM-DD-YY DD-MM-YY YY-MM-DD This is seriously freaking tiring to handle. All the data sheet exported from system are in MM-DD-YY format, and the customer read them all as DD-MM-YY & feeds into their own internal system. Yeah I head you saying "This is what localization is supposed to fix". But why? why not we fix this in peoples minds and make them follow a unified type. :sigh: :doh:
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy Falcon.
Obligatory XKCD[^]. :D
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
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I am surprised because SAP was touted as the solution to the Y2K problem in the US and was bought by many customers.
As I remember it (and it does seem like an awful long time ago, now!), they were a bit slow off the mark in making any guarantees - at least in the UK. I'm pretty sure that they eventually did but by that time our client had already committed to take the route that they did - running through the timeline in my head, I suspect the decision was made sometime during 1995.
98.4% of statistics are made up on the spot.
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Obligatory XKCD[^]. :D
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
I see you, and raise you [xkcd: ISO 8601](https://xkcd.com/1179/). No need for an additional standard. :)
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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Careful - the euro-standard is just uniformly ass-backwards. D-M-Y (any number of digits you prefer) sorts totally wrong. Period. YYYYMMDD is the only rational format as it can be sorted as is, even as text - but can be stored/sorted as an int. (I leave off proper date objects as they'd sort regardless). Just the usual Eurogance (the now and forever word for European arrogance). Time you just get over yourselves. Get some laxatives - clear your thoughts.
"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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W∴ Balboos wrote:
Careful - the euro-standard is just uniformly ass-backwards.
The Euro-standard sorts perfectly - if you write from right to left. :) You guys just need to learn Hebrew!
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
Nachon - hakol b'seder. Or is that: .redes'b lokah - nohcaN
"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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OK OK OK. Having seen enough Midsomer Murders (&etc.), I can safely say 'pompous', rather than arrogant, would be the description.
"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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OK OK OK. Having seen enough Midsomer Murders (&etc.), I can safely say 'pompous', rather than arrogant, would be the description.
"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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W∴ Balboos wrote:
Midsomer Murders
There may even be somewhere in England where people really behave like that. Apart from the murdering perhaps. :)
From what I hear of the behavior (behaviour, to them) English school boys, it would be amazing if there were only three-per-show equivalent in the countryside. Or at the least, they'd pluck the limbs off the torsos. Famous, that lot.
"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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standardizing the date formats and just keep it as one. The shorter, longer, the too longer all these differences are fine. I'm just talking about the completely opposite types like MM-DD-YY DD-MM-YY YY-MM-DD This is seriously freaking tiring to handle. All the data sheet exported from system are in MM-DD-YY format, and the customer read them all as DD-MM-YY & feeds into their own internal system. Yeah I head you saying "This is what localization is supposed to fix". But why? why not we fix this in peoples minds and make them follow a unified type. :sigh: :doh:
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy Falcon.
The USA already don't give a damn about several international conventions. A unified date format would fall into the same pit.
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YYYY-MM-DD is great for historical context but not so great for day-to-day. When you read a date, what is the most important portion of that date to you? As someone who natively reads a left-to-right language, I believe the most critical portions should be farthest left. I know, currently, it's Tuesday where I live. Maybe I've been super busy for two weeks and missed that May rolled over into June. For me the most important portion is the month. With that single value alone I can immediately orient myself in time - Tuesday, early June, 2018. Viewing only the year, or only the day, can you claim the same? EDIT: I'm honestly curious (open discussion to anyone). I'm not set on any given methodology; this one just makes more sense to me. Anytime I bring up my reasoning in other discussions I'm dismissed as an American yet they provide no sensible argument to the contrary.
If dates were alway yyyymmdd (with or without delimiters), it would not be a problem for left-to-right readers at all. Those of us who can read process so much information in the background that it will be adapted to as effortless. lkie radendg tihs - at lseat for nvtaie Enisglh uesrs.
"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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The USA already don't give a damn about several international conventions. A unified date format would fall into the same pit.
Right - because they don't follow the standards you prefer. Silly person! China still doesn't have an alphabetic language and working on changing that would be time better spent (although they've had civil wars over that in the past). Let me remind you that the US use of 'ounces' is better for computers. 1 oz = base unit = 8 drams 4 oz = gil 8 oz = cup 16 oz = pint 32 oz = quart 128 oz = gallon All powers of two - perfectly represented in binary. Perhaps you ought to get over counting on your fingers and trash that roundoff-error-prone metric system.
"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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Careful - the euro-standard is just uniformly ass-backwards. D-M-Y (any number of digits you prefer) sorts totally wrong. Period. YYYYMMDD is the only rational format as it can be sorted as is, even as text - but can be stored/sorted as an int. (I leave off proper date objects as they'd sort regardless). Just the usual Eurogance (the now and forever word for European arrogance). Time you just get over yourselves. Get some laxatives - clear your thoughts.
"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
I certainly don't recognize what you are referring to, arguing in favor of yyyymmdd sort of as opposed to some "Eurogance". ISO 8601 has been adopted in Europe to a much higher degree than in the US, many years ago. Obviously, thirty years ago (when ISO 8601 was first published) there were other ways of writing dates. Some schemes were integrated in formal systems, such as the Norwegian "fødseslsnummer" (birth number, a rough equivalent to the social security number in the USA) where the person's ddmmyy birth date make up 6 of the 11 digits. When ISO 8601 was introduced, this 20+ year old scheme was not changed, and still remains. But for the great majority of new schemes established after 1988, the yyyy-mm-dd (with the hyphens, according to the international standard) format is used. Obviously, ISO 8601 was not out of the blue, either: The 8601 format was well known even before 1988. In informal contexts and particularly orally, other schemes (such as "thirteenth of June") is still in use. In formal contexts, ISO 8601 has a very strong position (unless old conventions must be followed, such as the fødselsnummer). Note that when Europeans do 8601, they do 8601: With the hyphens. Not as an 8-digit string. Not with slashes, but according to the international standard.
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If dates were alway yyyymmdd (with or without delimiters), it would not be a problem for left-to-right readers at all. Those of us who can read process so much information in the background that it will be adapted to as effortless. lkie radendg tihs - at lseat for nvtaie Enisglh uesrs.
"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
One funny observation: We use "Arabic" numerals, reading left to right, reading the most significant digit first. In Arabic, they represent the numbers the same way, reading from right to left, reading the least significant digit first. In several European languages, including slightly archaic English, there are remains of least-to-most-significant reading: "four and twenty blackbirds". Even in modern German, you put the ones before the tens. In most Western languages, for the teens you put the ones before the ten: Four-teen, six-teen.
