The yyyy-mm-dd concept started primarily from computer
where the files/directories were created with dates in
this format, so that it will be in chronological
order when listed.
You can see lot of internet websites using this format
including the url's.
All numbers like telephone, zipcode, etc follows this
rule of the smallest unit coming in the right.
No country/congress enforced this rule, but it is
creeping slowly into our life. I wrote 100 + checks
with date in this format and in only 1 check, the date
was rewritten and none of them bounced.
Kindly use the yyyy-mm-dd format.
Madan
--- Han Maenen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: "Han Maenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [USMA:17581] Re: ISO 8601 date format
> Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 09:15:15 +0100
> Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> DD-MM-YYYY is a logical sequence even if ISO did not
> choose it. I used it in
> the past, but now I am comfortable with YYYY-MM-DD.
> And I can also write
> 2002 January 22 for day to day purposes. I have
> never attacked the
> DD-MM-YYYY format, only the sequence that starts
> with moderately large, then
> small, then very large and followed by ante meridiem
> and post meridiem, as
> if people can not count further than 12 and then
> have to start again.
>
> Han
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ma Be" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Wednesday, 2002-01-23 04:01
> Subject: [USMA:17559] Re: ISO 8601 date format
>
>
> While Pat's arguments do sound quite...
> rational/logical, I must also agree
> with Jim who's brought a very valid point. Until we
> undo this messy
> business with time reckoning ANY format would be a
> challenge as far as calcs
> are concerned.
>
> Being a computer programmer myself I can talk by
> experience that it really
> doesn't make my life any easier or more difficult if
> I'm required to work
> with a specific ISO format or not. Sure,
> standardization would be nice when
> it comes to seeing the raw data and being able to
> immediately "interpret"
> what it would mean. Therefore, in that regard there
> might be a case for ISO
> format.
>
> But, let's please not make the lives of citizens
> any more complicated than
> it should be. On a personal note, I also favor the
> dd-mm-yyyy format, like
> Jim, for more "practical" reasons, i.e. due to the
> fact that people worry
> more about knowing what day of the month they are at
> first, THEN the month,
> and THEN the year, in this order.
>
> Anyways, as I've already indicated to Gene, Duncan
> and others here, this
> doesn't mean that I would be a "rock in the way" of
> standardization in this
> regard. ;-)
>
> Marcus
>
> On Tue, 22 Jan 2002 15:34:43
> Jim Elwell wrote:
> At 09:10 AM 1/23/2002 +1100, Pat Naughtin wrote:
> To avoid this issue, some people avoid all numeric
> dates by using number and
> letter combinations, such as 4 July 2002 or 7 apr
> 2002. This technique not
> only avoids the issue, but it makes it much more
> difficult to use a standard
> date format in a computer and it makes writing dates
> less compact...
> ....
> However, others claim that it is possible to be
> rational when writing dates.
> These are the people who say that the date format,
> yyyy mm dd, is the way to
> go.
>
> I have no argument with the order year-month-date,
> although it seems funny
> to me at this time (I've never used it). However, I
> disagree with part of
> what Pat writes.
>
> Using letters for the date is not just to avoid
> confusion. "Aug" or
> "August" is much easier for humans to assimilate
> than "8" or "08," and
> subsequently is less prone to human error.
>
> Furthermore, well-written software does not use any
> of these formats. It
> uses a date code, which is essentially a sequential
> number from some base
> date. The display of the date to the user (on the
> screen or printed) is
> controlled by formatting, but does not change the
> way the date number is
> stored or used for calculations.
>
> Which is why I can tell Excel to use my preferred
> format ("4 July 2002")
> and it has no problem whatsoever properly sorting
> records by the date, or
> calculating the time between dates, etc.
>
> In other words, we do not need to make humans use
> less-friendly date
> formats in order to make life easy on computers.
>
> Jim Elwell
>
>
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions!
http://auctions.yahoo.com
