Best date format?

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: joshsquall
MM/DD/YYYY. It's how we speak. March 12th, 2008 sounds much better than 12th March, 2008 or 2008, March 12th.

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
YYYYMMDDHHMISS

Might as well go whole hog and add the offset from GMT:
YYYYMMDDHHMISSZ-05

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: joshsquall
MM/DD/YYYY. It's how we speak. March 12th, 2008 sounds much better than 12th March, 2008 or 2008, March 12th.

There's no need to pronounce (or transliterate, whatever) each number as it comes. Once you get used to any format it becomes second nature to interpret.

 

[johnjbruin]

yyyy/mm/dd > dd/mm/yyyy > mm/dd/yyyy

The American format sucks - and yes I am American.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: joshsquall
MM/DD/YYYY. It's how we speak. March 12th, 2008 sounds much better than 12th March, 2008 or 2008, March 12th.

There's no need to pronounce (or transliterate, whatever) each number as it comes. Once you get used to any format it becomes second nature to interpret.

Why use a date format that can't immediately be translated into words?

 

[shortylickens]

The best date format is as follows:
FMF

MFF is nice too, as is MF FF, but FMF is the best format for a date.

 

[sunzt]

YY/MM/DD

General to specific details, just like how most problems are addressed. More logical too.

 

[sdifox]

There is no way to fuck up yyyy-mm-dd, unlike any other format. I don't get why we are still using the other numeric ones. If you are spelling out the month, sure, use mm/dd/yyyy, but otherwise, please, use yyyy-mm-dd

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: joshsquall

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: joshsquall
MM/DD/YYYY. It's how we speak. March 12th, 2008 sounds much better than 12th March, 2008 or 2008, March 12th.

There's no need to pronounce (or transliterate, whatever) each number as it comes. Once you get used to any format it becomes second nature to interpret.

Why use a date format that can't immediately be translated into words?

because ambiguity in dates fucks up a lot of things, especially in banking.

 

[Mermaidman]

Originally posted by: ironwing
2008_03_12

Easy to read, sortable, appropriate for file and folder names. When used as files names format is self sorting.

//Porn/oldsmoboat_butt_ass_nekid_2008_03_11.jpg
//Porn/oldsmoboat_butt_ass_nekid_2008_03_12.jpg

Only one pic a day?

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: joshsquall

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: joshsquall
MM/DD/YYYY. It's how we speak. March 12th, 2008 sounds much better than 12th March, 2008 or 2008, March 12th.

There's no need to pronounce (or transliterate, whatever) each number as it comes. Once you get used to any format it becomes second nature to interpret.

Why use a date format that can't immediately be translated into words?

12MAR08, 30-08-2008... Not everybody uses 01-30-2008.

 

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
not out of all of them, if you include non-numeric only, then i prefer

12 MAR 2008

I spent enough time as a SAS programmer to apprecate the DATE9. format

 

[sandorski]

dd/mm/yyyy is the more practical, but yyyy/mm/dd is not bad. mm/dd/yyyy makes little sense and is the reason why people get confused when reading other peoples Dates. mm/dd/yyyy would be like giving the Time as mm/HH/ss.

 

[Babbles]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
not out of all of them, if you include non-numeric only, then i prefer

12 MAR 2008

I work in the pharmaceutical research industry and I would go so far as to say that this is, for the most part, the scientific standard for writing the date. Granted not everybody and every company out there uses it, but for the most part this seems standard. Many people, and I do as well at times, will use MM/DD/YY but again when it comes to more formal date writing the 12-Mar-2008 type format seems to be the most common.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: joshsquall

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: joshsquall
MM/DD/YYYY. It's how we speak. March 12th, 2008 sounds much better than 12th March, 2008 or 2008, March 12th.

There's no need to pronounce (or transliterate, whatever) each number as it comes. Once you get used to any format it becomes second nature to interpret.

Why use a date format that can't immediately be translated into words?

Because dates are numbers, and this way it sorts properly in every single computer system. Humans are better at compensating than computers, so if anything we should be the ones who rearrange between written dates and spoken words.

 

[Babbles]

Originally posted by: sandorski
dd/mm/yyyy is the more practical, but yyyy/mm/dd is not bad. mm/dd/yyyy makes little sense and is the reason why people get confused when reading other peoples Dates. mm/dd/yyyy would be like giving the Time as mm/HH/ss.

I think you are blowing it out of proportion. I would say that most people (at least in the USA) verbally say the date as something like, "March 12." Then along those lines people do have a tendency to write in a similar manner that they speak, therefore to write the date as mm/dd/yyyy mimics how many people speak.

Makes reasonable sense, regardless if you like it or not.

 

[GeekDrew]

Depends on where it is being used.

Never - absolutely never - (mm/dd/yy), (mm/dd/yyyy), (dd/mm/yy), (dd/mm/yyyy).

Usually, when using the date in a text field that is not directly recorded as 'data', or when handwriting, I'll use (12 MAR 2008), and drop the year if I'm 100% certain that it does not matter, even if the receiver of said communication manages to foul up the year.

If it is in any kind of electronic/data format, then definitely by order from greatest unit to smallest, dropping units from the end when they are not significant (or worse yet, detrimental) to the application:

YYYYMMDDTHHMMSSZ - 20080312T195701Z
or, if you want it to be human-readable,
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z - 2008-03-12T19:57:01 Z

When recording hours, I definitely prefer 24 hour (military/international) format. If the people aren't bright enough to figure that out, then 12 hour with AM/PM indicated. If AM/PM isn't indicated in 12 hour format, then recording the timebit is altogether worthless.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Babbles

Originally posted by: sandorski
dd/mm/yyyy is the more practical, but yyyy/mm/dd is not bad. mm/dd/yyyy makes little sense and is the reason why people get confused when reading other peoples Dates. mm/dd/yyyy would be like giving the Time as mm/HH/ss.

I think you are blowing it out of proportion. I would say that most people (at least in the USA) verbally say the date as something like, "March 12." Then along those lines people do have a tendency to write in a similar manner that they speak, therefore to write the date as mm/dd/yyyy mimics how many people speak.

Makes reasonable sense, regardless if you like it or not.

Ya, it does mimmick how people who speak English say the Date. However, when people tell the date they usually speak the Month as a word and not numerically. This is where the confusion comes in with written Numerical Dates. You don't say the word, but a number representative of a Month within a Year.

The problem also becomes apparent when people of other languages read the Numerical Date. They often do not verbally say mm/dd, so not only would they possibly be confused as to what you wrote, but you may also be confused as to what they wrote.

Mathematically denoted things should follow a Logical and a universally understandable pattern. MM/DD/YYYY doesn't comply with that.

 

[IronWing]

We should ask ourselves "How would Larry Wall write it?" and adopt 2008_02_12 for March 12th, 2008.

 

[silverpig]

YYYY/MM/DD

OR if there are letters allowed I prefer

12 MAR 2008

 

[Sunner]

YYYYMMDD, put whatever delimiters you like between them.

Messing it up by putting it in a completely illogical order in terms of unit "size" never made any sense to me
And the "That's the way you say it" doesn't make any more sense to me than people saying the imperial system is good "because you can relate to a foot, what the hell is a meter?".

 

[agr8man]

DD-MM-YYYY

 

[PrinceofWands]

Absolutely ass backwards for anything important.

DD/MM/YYYY

From smallest to largest. I don't know why, but my brain just won't wrap the other direction.

 

[Miklebud]

Originally posted by: sniperruff
March 12, 2008 is best

 

[EKKC]

filenames i prefer YYYYMMDD
writing i would still do MM/DD/YYYY