this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
1899 points (93.1% liked)
Memes
45726 readers
883 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Lot of talk of numerics only. The problem there is knowing what format the information is in since clearly there are 3 possibilities. Without context and during certain parts of the month you're hosed. Best to remove ambiguity and go with the alpha numeric format.
DD MMM YY (or alternatively YYYY)
11 Aug 2023
Ambiguity gone.
23 Aug 23. Ya, no ambiguity. /s
2023-08-23 is the way.
Any date format can be unambiguous as long as it's the one that everyone agrees on, and all date formats will be ambiguous as long as we have several in use.
I kinda gave up, nowadays when i write a date to someone i specify the date format. Like i will send "01/05/2024 (DD/MM/YYYY)" because it's the only way to be sure
There's no amibuity with year first and done properly like YYYY-MM-DD.
Your reasoning is that the ambiguity exists due to using numbers. The ambiguity is only for 2/3 numerical methods
As monstrous as it is yyyy-mm-dd could also be misconstrued by said unfortunate Americans as yyyy-dd-mm because...well...yeah. As noted elsewhere this dd mmm yyyy format also works nicely in written and verbal communication as 12th of august where no one ever is going to write or speak to each other twenty twenty three august twelfth. So again, more universal and less ambiguous.
The second reason why yyyy-MM-dd is the correct way to write days (beside being sortable by default) is because even Americans doesn't have any similar format that it can be confused with.
I learned this in my first half year as a programmer I think, somewhere well over a decade back and so far it seems that guy was right.
As monsterous as it is yyyy-mm-dd could also be misconstrued by said unfortunate Americans as yyyy-dd-mm because...well...yeah. As noted elsewhere this dd mmm yyyy format also works nicely in written and verbal communication as 12th of august where no one ever is going to write or speak to each other twenty twenty three august twelfth. So again, more universal and less ambiguous.
Problem is that languages get in the way. Some are pretty similar like
15 ago(Spanish) being15 Aug(English), but1 ene(Spanish) aren't that similar to1 Jan(English).And for the usual "But English is used everwhere! I live in X!" crowd: NO, it isn't. Not everything you see as an "expat" is the same as the actual locals with their own language.