Both are wrong. The correct way to write the date is YYYY-MM-DD. This is the only way to sort dates linearly in a list. ISO 8601.
In Arabic we use DD/MM/YYYY but it actually gets written as YYYY/MM/DD since Arabic is written and read from right to left. When the year is dropped the confusing part is not what format is used here but rather does this website/software support RTL or is it just regular unformatted ASCII.
Edit: it’s still not ISO 8601 and it doesn’t solve the sorting issue
It’s frustrating that people are so bad at dates that ISO8601 lives rent-free in my head because I constantly have to tell people ;)
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Our lives involve computers to a huge degree.
Hungarian is close enough
YYYY.MM.DD
I can be OK with that
But not with having elected the Trump of EU
Bro, trump is learning from Orbán if anything Trump is the US Orbán, fuck both of them too
♥️ this is what I decide to use at work. Dots are superior than dashes in my opinion because they prevent line breaks
I like dashes because they work better than dots or slashes for file names.
How so? At least dots haven’t prevented me in the past (windows, Mac, android, various cloud storage).
Most OSes will let you do it but
2025.01.01.pngcould have issues compared to2025-01-01.png. Plus I think it’s a little clearer what the file type actually is.Its just a little pedantic thing I’ve picked up after years of being a sysadmin. In my mind slashes (
/) are reserved for directory delimitation and the period (.) is to separate the file name from the file type. I also have a little bit longer of a list of “reserved” characters for other reasons (,#, and{`}`)
And, when the context of the year is understood, you can just drop it. At least Japanese does this (and I’m pretty sure Chinese does as well).
You shouldn’t do that, because if you’re writing it down it means you want to either refer to it later or have someone else refer to it later. The year changes and you’re searching for that receipt or email… why set yourself up for failure?
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BRB – I have to tell the country of Japan they’re doing dates wrong /s.
For the things I’m thinking about, the year generally doesn’t matter. I’m thinking advertisements or even things that say like ‘Spring 2025 menu 2025年の春メヌー’ or something which preserves context. A lot are also written on shop whiteboards and such which are changed fairly regularly. In my own notes, in anything I may care about that far into the future, I do write the full date in ISO-8601
What do you think of DD/HH/YYYY/Min/MM/Sec?
Could be improved by swapping hours and minutes. They are more important after all.
Also that way the time isn’t in order anymore.
As someone from a yyyy-mm-dd country, you’re all wrong /hj
yyyy-mm-dd is specified by ISO 8601, so there’s really no argument it isn’t the objectively correct format.
There’s also RFC3339, which is freely available and compatible with the most common ISO8501 profile.
What about RFC 9557, which is an update to RFC 3339?
I had not heard of that one, thanks! Looks like a good extension.
Weird question, if it’s called “Request For Comments”, where do we post the comments?
I always use yyyy.mm.dd as my date format whenever I sign and date documents. I also use a pictograph instead of initials. Someone tried to forge a contract edit to try and get out of paying but used the mm/dd/yy format. The moment my lawyer showed this to their lawyer, they settled immediately for the original amount, legal fees, and late payment penalties. Dumbasses.
That’s beautiful. I love a bit of personal standards to fuck someone else’s day up.
I typically change my responses on the form to Calibri if using MS Office. It’s not enough to pique anyone’s interest, but it’s different enough to spot what I’ve added to a form rather than the usual Arial additions if you’ve been told about it.
Someone at my office tried to say I’d said something on a form when I hadn’t, and took great delight pointing out the slight difference in typeface on the field that wasn’t my edit.
It’s satisfying as fuck coming back at someone with receipts.
So I could use a different than usual date format for a document I might want to recall
The situation was more like “Dear lawyer, your clients have committed a federal felony offense and they did it in such a sloppy manner that they didn’t even follow our standard document formatting. Drop the suit, have them pay our legal fees and a fine, and we won’t inform the US District Attorney and then ask the State Bar of Texas to look into whether you knowingly partook in this scheme”.
I’m glad I’m near retirement. These sort of situations chip away at the soul.
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Why is the format not:
2025/4/12
Biggest time frame to smallest time frame (year, month, then day)?
Issues with unix paths. I prefer 2025-04-12.
2009, got it
2025/4/12
Don’t forget leading zeroes, we’re not half assing this!
02025/04/012
As a computer scientist, I’ve been doing this everywhere for over 10 years already. Be the change you want to see in the world.
I worked for a company that did their dates multiple ways and it was fucking impossible to know what date was what. It was super frustrating. I’d prefer this, but if you don’t, at least keep it consistent once you start.
If a date starts with the year, everyone will know the thing after it is the month. I’ve never ever seen YYYY/DD/MM. That, to me, seems like it wouldn’t add additional confusion at least.
They flipped month and day. If it was the year, you’re right.
ISO Tanf rise up.
Also 2025/04/12
ISO8601 FTW!
In my computer engineering course this is literally how we were told to write the date on our lab reports.
For written format that is ideal but when talking about a date, say in two weeks time, saying the year is redundant.
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What Americans are calling people idiots for saying (day) of (month)? We say it both ways all the time. 4th of July, July 4th… it’s not a complicated thing.
It’s like saying USAians don’t have a sense of humour. Some USAians are MAGAt knob heads, some are perfectly reasonable people. More or less like anywhere else.
I like DD MON YYYY. Feels very grand and unambiguous, but people always look at me funny for using it.
I’m an American and do day/month/year.
I thought this was how it was done everywhere?
So the holiday that’s coming up in a week… Is it 4/20, or 20/4?
4/20 blaze it.
You’re Goddamn right.
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Coldest take: if any common date format is difficult for you, you’re a little bit ridiculous
MM/DD/YYYY genuinely causes issues, because it’s very easily misread by the rest of the world, and vise versa for Americans.
I have been mislead more than once, because the MM and DD are both ≤ 12.
MM/DD/YYYY needs to die
Month Day YYYY is fine, because it’s unambiguous when the month is spelled out.
YYYY.MM.DD, or similar, is the only way to sort dates properly anyway.
It’s all fun and games until someone drops a 7/4 and you don’t know which country they’re from
November 9 never forget.
Context clues are enough for me, 4/7 times
I only deal with people from one country, but I always write out the month so there’s no confusion in important messages. Even including the day of the week as a type of verification.
I usually go for if it has a / its probably US date formate…
We use dots in our Locale
RIP Australia and our DD/MM/YYYY (and rest of the former British Empire I assume).
Drives me nuts when software doesn’t properly localise.
Looking at you, Excel for web which defaults to MM/DD/YYYY in our company for some reason, even though the desktop app has no issues…
We write it how you’d say it. Outside of holidays or days of remembrance we write it how you say it.
For example today is 4/13/25. April 13th 2025. If you say the 13th of April you’re fuckin weird.
And which do you ask more often what month is it or what day is it?
I don’t understand how that’s relevant?
That’s how YOU say it. Personally, I would say the 10th of March, the 2nd of June. But then, I’m not American.
Don’t mock them.
One day you will meet one in person and he’ll beat you up if he’s 7 foot, 3/5 thumbs and 2 elbows tall.deleted by creator
