Date/Time is frequent topic[0] for me. Generally speaking, a lot of these issues are knowing when it's appropriate to use what format. When displaying a date

Date/Time is frequent topic[0] for me. Generally speaking, a lot of these issues are knowing when it's appropriate to use what format. When displaying a date to a user, you do it in their configured local time, and in their configured date/time format. I don't think the author is advocating changing that behavior[1]. Where the problem comes in is "how you store date/time values". Normally, I don't find myself arguing as to the format. Generally speaking, people default to ISO-8601 for log file naming (many probably not realizing that's what they're doing -- aiming only for a naturally sortable list). The places I tend to store dates (databases) define how they're stored, otherwise. That doesn't mean a developer isn't going to store the date in server local/user local time (and often make discovering the reference time zone impossible). Please don't do this. Store in UTC. I'm not sure why the author is so hung up about the ordering of the dates, but while I worked in telecom, I briefly had a boss that was really particular about that (I've worked for a few folks in the UK, only this first boss had hang-ups). The US ordering probably originates from the most common way dates are spoken in the US: "Januaray 17th". A year is less frequently necessary, but when it is, it's tacked on the end. I don't think anyone thinks the way we write dates is particular superior, it's just the way we've done it since we first learned about dates. One thing I learned when I started working regularly with non-US folks. Never use numerical dates. Even if you write it in the format they are comfortable with, if there's any ambiguity, they're likely to assume you wrote it in the US format. I started writing/abbreviating month names. I ended up altering the written order, as well "17th of January or 17 Jan" because that particular first boss jokingly-non-joked about how obnoxious the other way was. Everybody's got their tabs/spaces war, I guess! [0] OK, so it's more of a pet peeve. [1] While it would be nice if we all used the same date/time format in our day-to-day life, it's one of those things that I'll wager will never happen... and I'd argue that doing so would cause more problems than it would help.