8 ms·

I have taken to writing 11 March 2021 or similar whenever possible. But sure, 2021-03-11 is also fine, when trying to save something machine readable. The US c

I have taken to writing 11 March 2021 or similar whenever possible. But sure, 2021-03-11 is also fine, when trying to save something machine readable. The US conventions are indeed horrendous.

Mordisquitos 6y ago
Another great thing about 2021-03-11 is that, even putting aside its technical advantages, it is (probably) intuitively understandable to any literate person even if they have never seen it before and, most importantly, it is almost immune from confusion because (hopefully) nobody is insane enough to expect YYYY-DD-MM. YYYY-MM-DD both satisfies the American intuitive expectation of month coming before day, and the Worldwide expectation of time units being displayed in a logical order.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  I have seen non-Americans write YYYY/DD/MM before. Hyphens are key here.
  - happymellon 6y ago
    That is horrifying. I am glad I have never met these people.
    - PeterisP 6y ago
      yyyy.dd.mm. (but not with hyphens!) are commonly used for all the languages where their grammar and word order means that the spoken way to say dates is like "twothousandtwentieth year's first march".
      - happymellon 6y ago
        eye_twitch.gif
- silvestrov 6y ago
  Another great thing about 2021-03-11 is that it ascii sorts correctly.
  - fogihujy 6y ago
    This is the big one when it comes to sorting files and directories on disk. It makes sorting and finding what you look for so much easier.
- lurquer 6y ago
  > it is almost immune from confusion because (hopefully) nobody is insane enough to expect YYYY-DD-MM. YYYY-MM-DD both satisfies the American intuitive expectation of month coming before day, I disagree. (Or, perhaps I’m insane...) I paused when coming across the ANSI version in the article as I couldn’t tell whether it was YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-DD-MM. I thought there was a typo or something. I’ve nothing against the standard, but as Americans have no ‘intuitive’ reason to sort the fields by significance, it is natural for some to incorrectly assume the ANSI version is just the American version written backwards.
- eythian 6y ago
  Non-scientifically, about 20% of people won't: https://twitter.com/troyhunt/status/978747364105011202 https://twitter.com/troyhunt/status/978747364105011202
  - account42 6y ago
    I don't think it's fair to assume that the people choosing the WTF option would not have interpreted the format correctly if they had to pick an actual interpretation.
otherme123 6y ago
I also always write 11 मार्च 2021 or similar whenever possible. No problems so far.
- eqvinox 6y ago
  I go with 「２０２１年０３月１１日」. Free bonus test included for whether software handles alternate numerals ;)
  - 3np 6y ago
    Tangent, but I do like the space-efficiency in some cases for Chinese/Japanese characters that make them great for status bars and terminal prompts. E.g. a single character to unambiguously denote weekday, window layout (全／広／高）, and others. Renders everywhere as long as you have a decent CJK font. Bonus: looks a lot less stupid than emojis. My desktop terminal prompt right now shows [金 19:58:22] - just a single character and as long as it's < 7d ago it's unambiguous what time and day a command exited in case I forget.
    - eqvinox 6y ago
      Absolutely agree. Also in some cases you get "tables" aligned for free (... if there's nothing else length-varying.)
    - bhaak 6y ago
      > My desktop terminal prompt right now shows [金 19:58:22] - just a single character and as long as it's < 7d ago it's unambiguous what time and day a command exited in case I forget. You're a bit cheating there :) It's one character that takes up 2 columns. You could get away with using the first 2 characters from the English names as they are unique. But I know that in English that's unusual but for example in German, the 2 letter abbreviation are the standard ones. You say weekday, but Google translate and Wikipedia say that 金 means gold?
      - 3np 6y ago
        Maybe a bit cheating - but it's nice with the consistency, and visually it becomes a lot more clear and immediate at least for me. "金" would be short for "金曜日", a common way to abbreviate weekday names in calendars etc and yes, Friday is indeed the day of gold - I like to imagine it's the old pay day for workers maybe? :D

I have taken to writing 11 March 2021 or similar whenever possible. But sure, 2021-03-11 is also fine, when trying to save something machine readable. The US conventions are indeed horrendous.

Mordisquitos 6y ago

Another great thing about 2021-03-11 is that, even putting aside its technical advantages, it is (probably) intuitively understandable to any literate person even if they have never seen it before and, most importantly, it is almost immune from confusion because (hopefully) nobody is insane enough to expect YYYY-DD-MM. YYYY-MM-DD both satisfies the American intuitive expectation of month coming before day, and the Worldwide expectation of time units being displayed in a logical order.

jacobolus 6y ago
I have seen non-Americans write YYYY/DD/MM before. Hyphens are key here.
- happymellon 6y ago
  That is horrifying. I am glad I have never met these people.
  - PeterisP 6y ago
    yyyy.dd.mm. (but not with hyphens!) are commonly used for all the languages where their grammar and word order means that the spoken way to say dates is like "twothousandtwentieth year's first march".
    - happymellon 6y ago
      eye_twitch.gif
silvestrov 6y ago
Another great thing about 2021-03-11 is that it ascii sorts correctly.
- fogihujy 6y ago
  This is the big one when it comes to sorting files and directories on disk. It makes sorting and finding what you look for so much easier.
lurquer 6y ago
> it is almost immune from confusion because (hopefully) nobody is insane enough to expect YYYY-DD-MM. YYYY-MM-DD both satisfies the American intuitive expectation of month coming before day, I disagree. (Or, perhaps I’m insane...) I paused when coming across the ANSI version in the article as I couldn’t tell whether it was YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-DD-MM. I thought there was a typo or something. I’ve nothing against the standard, but as Americans have no ‘intuitive’ reason to sort the fields by significance, it is natural for some to incorrectly assume the ANSI version is just the American version written backwards.
eythian 6y ago
Non-scientifically, about 20% of people won't: https://twitter.com/troyhunt/status/978747364105011202 https://twitter.com/troyhunt/status/978747364105011202
- account42 6y ago
  I don't think it's fair to assume that the people choosing the WTF option would not have interpreted the format correctly if they had to pick an actual interpretation.

otherme123 6y ago

I also always write 11 मार्च 2021 or similar whenever possible. No problems so far.

eqvinox 6y ago
I go with 「２０２１年０３月１１日」. Free bonus test included for whether software handles alternate numerals ;)
- 3np 6y ago
  Tangent, but I do like the space-efficiency in some cases for Chinese/Japanese characters that make them great for status bars and terminal prompts. E.g. a single character to unambiguously denote weekday, window layout (全／広／高）, and others. Renders everywhere as long as you have a decent CJK font. Bonus: looks a lot less stupid than emojis. My desktop terminal prompt right now shows [金 19:58:22] - just a single character and as long as it's < 7d ago it's unambiguous what time and day a command exited in case I forget.
  - eqvinox 6y ago
    Absolutely agree. Also in some cases you get "tables" aligned for free (... if there's nothing else length-varying.)
  - bhaak 6y ago
    > My desktop terminal prompt right now shows [金 19:58:22] - just a single character and as long as it's < 7d ago it's unambiguous what time and day a command exited in case I forget. You're a bit cheating there :) It's one character that takes up 2 columns. You could get away with using the first 2 characters from the English names as they are unique. But I know that in English that's unusual but for example in German, the 2 letter abbreviation are the standard ones. You say weekday, but Google translate and Wikipedia say that 金 means gold?
    - 3np 6y ago
      Maybe a bit cheating - but it's nice with the consistency, and visually it becomes a lot more clear and immediate at least for me. "金" would be short for "金曜日", a common way to abbreviate weekday names in calendars etc and yes, Friday is indeed the day of gold - I like to imagine it's the old pay day for workers maybe? :D