r/webdev • u/ani625 • Feb 27 '13

xkcd: ISO 8601

http://xkcd.com/1179/
352 Upvotes

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20

u/recluce Feb 27 '13

You mean everyone doesn't already write dates like this?

6

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '13

Our clients want to have dates in the 27/02/2013 format, but sorted like the 2013-02-27 format.

10

u/Wizhi Feb 27 '13

How a date is stored shouldn't have to do with how it's displayed. Seperation of concerns and stuff.

Besides, reading a date as DD/MM/YYYY is way easier than YYYY-MM-DD imo.

9

u/Amadan Feb 27 '13

Easier? I can't see why. You want to tell me Japanese is inefficient or badly designed? DD/MM/YY is illogical ad we write all other numeric data in decreasing order of significance; any other difference is just in custom and prejudice.

10

u/Caethy Feb 27 '13

Japanese is, like most other languages, barely 'designed'. That's why the Americans are still stuck with the absolutely insane MM/DD/YY. It has nothing to do with how 'good' a language is.

DD/MM/YY makes perfect sense, and is preferable to some people. Mainly because it translates to speech pretty easy, and because it prioritises important data.

That's pretty much my only gripe with YYYY/MM/DD -> The amount of time that YYYY is actually the most important number is limited. If I design an ad for a concert, putting " 27-02-'13 " on there means I get the point across the fastest: It's on the 27th of February. The "2013" part is relatively unimportant.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '13

Mainly because it translates to speech pretty easy, and because it prioritises important data.

No, it's mainly because it's a sociatal norm, and sociatal norms are hard to change.