4 ms·

Great article on the topic. But does anyone know why they write years in this strange 0yyyy format?

plucas 3y ago
https://longnow.org/ideas/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-and-10k-compliance-at-home/ https://longnow.org/ideas/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-an...
- somedude895 3y ago
  I like it: > Our zero is for optimism. The notion that the externalized thoughts we write today may survive myriad years to a time when that fifth digit becomes significant.
kazinator 3y ago
[flagged]
Karellen 3y ago
The Long Now Foundation is dedicate to "fostering long term thinking". The date format they use is one attempt to head off the Y10K problem. See also RFC 2550 Y10K and Beyond for an alternate discussion. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2550 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2550
- kazinator 3y ago
  The thing is that when I write 2023, I am not asserting that this is a four digit year. It's an integer whose decimal representation requires four digits. Similarly when I say "the Kingdom of England became a single state in the year 927", I am not asserting that I'm using three digit years. However, if I said that this event happened in 0927, then it does look like I'm doing four digit years. It's the leading zeros that are associated with problematic ways of writing years. Two digit years have the leading zero for the first 9 years of the century (and the last year of the previous), like 00 for 2000 and 03 for 2003. Without the leading zero, 3 refers to Year 3 of our Common Era. The leading zero in 03 turns it into a partial, context-sensitive year understood as 2003. The 0 in 02023 does the same thing; it perpetrates some Y-something problem, in this case Y100K. In the year 102023, if people are around, some of them might use 02023 to mean 102023. When they mean the 2023 A.D. they will use 2023, and when they mean 12023, 22023, 32023, ... they will use exactly those forms. The silly zero people ain't thunk this through real well.
  - Karellen 3y ago
    Check the date of publication for the RFC.

https://longnow.org/ideas/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-and-10k-compliance-at-home/ https://longnow.org/ideas/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-an...

somedude895 3y ago
I like it: > Our zero is for optimism. The notion that the externalized thoughts we write today may survive myriad years to a time when that fifth digit becomes significant.

kazinator 3y ago

[flagged]

Karellen 3y ago

The Long Now Foundation is dedicate to "fostering long term thinking". The date format they use is one attempt to head off the Y10K problem. See also RFC 2550 Y10K and Beyond for an alternate discussion. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2550 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2550

kazinator 3y ago
The thing is that when I write 2023, I am not asserting that this is a four digit year. It's an integer whose decimal representation requires four digits. Similarly when I say "the Kingdom of England became a single state in the year 927", I am not asserting that I'm using three digit years. However, if I said that this event happened in 0927, then it does look like I'm doing four digit years. It's the leading zeros that are associated with problematic ways of writing years. Two digit years have the leading zero for the first 9 years of the century (and the last year of the previous), like 00 for 2000 and 03 for 2003. Without the leading zero, 3 refers to Year 3 of our Common Era. The leading zero in 03 turns it into a partial, context-sensitive year understood as 2003. The 0 in 02023 does the same thing; it perpetrates some Y-something problem, in this case Y100K. In the year 102023, if people are around, some of them might use 02023 to mean 102023. When they mean the 2023 A.D. they will use 2023, and when they mean 12023, 22023, 32023, ... they will use exactly those forms. The silly zero people ain't thunk this through real well.
- Karellen 3y ago
  Check the date of publication for the RFC.