Topic: International date format

I was browsing Quality Tips for Webmaster and there was one tip in particular that caught my eye - Use international date format (ISO). Now, if only this tip could catch on with our american and brittish friends, the world would be a better place. While we're at it, maybe we can get rid of the ridiculous AM/PM system. I could go on about completely illogical measurement systems, but date and time will have to suffice this time.

End rant.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Re: International date format

AM/PM is not too bad tongue neither are british dates (at least they make sense) american dates are totally messed up because they are out of order hmm

Re: International date format

The UK (Imperial) System of Measurement:

       Length
       """"""
  12 inches   = 1 foot
   3 feet     = 1 yard
  22 yards    = 1 chain
  10 chains   = 1 furlong
   8 furlongs = 1 mile
5280 feet     = 1 mile
1760 yards    = 1 mile

Brilliant! big_smile

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Re: International date format

Connorhd wrote:

AM/PM is not too bad tongue neither are british dates (at least they make sense) american dates are totally messed up because they are out of order hmm

From the way I see it, the American method is set up logically from what part of the information you need first.

MM / DD / YY(YY)

I would never say "The 15th of January, 2005," but I would say "January 15th, 2005."

It's what I grew up with, so it makes the most sense to me.

Re: International date format

Bassguy wrote:

It's what I grew up with, so it makes the most sense to me.

That's the problem. You all grew up with it and therefore it makes sense to you. To the rest of us (all 6.1 billion), it makes no sense at all smile

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

6 (edited by zaher 2005-09-04 20:26)

Re: International date format

I forced my customer seance 5 years to use this format 15-10-2006 (dd-mm-yyyy) but thay prefer use slash / instead of dash - and that make problem when use right to left order reading, and we write in first Day then Month then Year, writing day first it is good for AutoComplete the date (by add month and year), and if write day-month the year will be added automatically.

If your people come crazy, you will not need to your mind any more.

7

Re: International date format

Bassguy wrote:

From the way I see it, the American method is set up logically from what part of the information you need first.

MM / DD / YY(YY)

I would never say "The 15th of January, 2005," but I would say "January 15th, 2005."

I would always say 15th of January 2005, I would never put the month first. The most obvious case where this causes confusion is 9/11 which to us is 9th of November.

Rickard don't forget

12 Pence = 1 Shilling
5 Shillings = 1 Crown
4 Crowns = 1 Pound
1 Pound + 1 Shilling = 1 Guinea

And
437.5 grains = 1 Ounce
16 Ounces = 1 Pound
14 Pounds = 1 Stone
8 Stone = 1 Hundredweight
20 Hundredweight = 1 Ton

Now you know why we are such an inventive nation. You had to be a rocket scientist just to use the money.

Re: International date format

isn't ounce a measurement for volume aswell?

9

Re: International date format

Frank: That would be "Fluid ounces" of which there are 20 in a Pint.

Re: International date format

2 Pints = 1 Quart, right? smile

Re: International date format

The meter, quite obviously, is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

12

Re: International date format

two approaches have a significance: 
yyyy/mm/dd - > the least confused for the history and data processing
dd/mm/yyyy - > most usable by human:
- If I say: 15th, it's the 15th of the month
- If I say: 15/10, it's the 15th of the month 10 of this year

This is why 6,1 billion people chose this syntax. 

mm/dd/yyyy is really non-sense created by a confused shorty language.

Jerome (french)

13

Re: International date format

Rickard wrote:

The UK (Imperial) System of Measurement:

       Length
       """"""
  12 inches   = 1 foot
   3 feet     = 1 yard
  22 yards    = 1 chain
  10 chains   = 1 furlong
   8 furlongs = 1 mile
5280 feet     = 1 mile
1760 yards    = 1 mile

Brilliant! big_smile

Isn't this a carry-over from days of yore when a foot was *about* the length of someone's foot, a yard was *about* the length of a man's arm, etc?  So its not like someone just chose arbitrary numbers for those measurements.

Rickard wrote:
Bassguy wrote:

It's what I grew up with, so it makes the most sense to me.

That's the problem. You all grew up with it and therefore it makes sense to you. To the rest of us (all 6.1 billion), it makes no sense at all smile

Driving on the left side of the road doesn't make any sense to me, either, but some of you wacky Europeans do it anyway.  wink

As far as the date thing goes, I think it sounds silly to say "eleventh of September" when I can just say "September eleventh".  I guess that's just my "confused shorty language" getting in the way, though.

14

Re: International date format

Rickard wrote:

The meter, quite obviously, is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second.

Now that, sir, was funny.

Re: International date format

Rickard wrote:

The meter, quite obviously, is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second.

assuming you know what a second is
which is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom at zero kelvins.

16

Re: International date format

Rickard wrote:

The meter, quite obviously, is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second.

At the beginning, It was the 1/10000000 part of the distance between equator and pole.  big_smile

* 1791 March 30 ? The French National Assembly accepts the proposal by the French Academy of Sciences that the new definition for the metre be equal to one ten-millionth of the length of the earth's meridian along a quadrant (one-fourth the polar circumference of the earth).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter

Re: International date format

dmz wrote:

Isn't this a carry-over from days of yore when a foot was *about* the length of someone's foot, a yard was *about* the length of a man's arm, etc?  So its not like someone just chose arbitrary numbers for those measurements.

Well, yes, but don't you think it's time to move on?

Connorhd wrote:

assuming you know what a second is
which is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom at zero kelvins.

Ah, I thought it was caesium-132!

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

18

Re: International date format

Rickard wrote:

Well, yes, but don't you think it's time to move on?

Absolutely!  Can we can count on you to foot the bill for migrating 300 million people and all their rulers, roadsigns, computers, etc. to the Metric System?  I'm sure the one-time cost will be negligible. smile

19

Re: International date format

I'm American so I am very use to the Imperial system and I will never ever support moving away from it.  It is quite easy to figure out and we really only use inches, feet, yards, and miles.  I measure weight in pounds, and volume in ounces.  We do have 2-liters of soda, which is now universally recognized.

As for time I think that 1:00 PM and 1:00 AM make way more sense, since our clocks only have twelve figures.  Unless you want to try and divide that into 24 numbers, which will be impossible to read and mess up with the way we read clocks now.

US dates aren't hard to figure out.  I usually write out dates (e.g. September 27, 2005), which some go short (9/27/05).  The short one is a bit harder to understand, but just remember how confusing it is to see 27/9/05.  I never knew there were 29 months! tongue

Re: International date format

I prefer the metric system, in Canada, it is so easy!
Only because we change it 18 years ago... The only imperial left in our system is the words used to measurement of water, and the time [that is because a Canadian invented Standard time]

Go Canada! - No matter what, except when Stephen Harper is Prime Minster!
NHL is back, GO TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS! even if they lose...
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Re: International date format

Ethan wrote:

It is quite easy to figure out and we really only use inches, feet, yards, and miles.  I measure weight in pounds, and volume in ounces.

Yes, it's easy to figure out, but that's the problem. You shouldn't have to "figure out" a measurement system. It should be trivial.

Ethan wrote:

As for time I think that 1:00 PM and 1:00 AM make way more sense, since our clocks only have twelve figures.  Unless you want to try and divide that into 24 numbers, which will be impossible to read and mess up with the way we read clocks now.

Clocks? I haven't looked at a clock for ages smile

Ethan wrote:

US dates aren't hard to figure out.  I usually write out dates (e.g. September 27, 2005), which some go short (9/27/05).  The short one is a bit harder to understand, but just remember how confusing it is to see 27/9/05.  I never knew there were 29 months! tongue

No one ever said they were hard to figure out. It's just that you insist on using them when no one else in the world does.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

22

Re: International date format

Ethan wrote:

I'm American so I am very use to the Imperial system and I will never ever support moving away from it.

Which, as an attitude, is exactly what makes this planet a very cumbersome place at times.
If everybody thought like that you'd have 6 billion people who refuse to speak a second language because their own is just perfect. wink

Ethan wrote:

US dates aren't hard to figure out.

No, not if you're American. You should spend some time thinking yourself into somebody's brain who is not from America. Which is still 95% of the world population wink

I agree with Rickard that a unified date system would really help understanding each other.
If you want to be a worldwide community it does not help if everybody refuses to give up old habits.
I remember the big laments of the British when they had to introduce the decimal system to their currency 20 years ago.
Today nobody talks about it anymore...

The German PunBB Site:
PunBB-forum.de

Re: International date format

Ethan wrote:

US dates aren't hard to figure out.

only if thats the only one use...
the date is 03/04/02  what is the day, month and year?

24 (edited by Speechless 2005-09-28 18:39)

Re: International date format

so why can't we just write our dates like this: 2:30:08, Monday, September 28th, 2005

its long but it makes so much sense, or else i prefer: h/m/s, mm/dd/yy
I am not use to international time, but I am fine with it, as long as more website does it.

Go Canada! - No matter what, except when Stephen Harper is Prime Minster!
NHL is back, GO TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS! even if they lose...
[Firefox Rules!] - [Amazing Race] - [My Site!]

25

Re: International date format

You guys keep insisting that our systems of measure are "non-trivial" to "figure out" and that's only because we're "Americans" and "used to it".  Does the reverse not apply?  Someone says to me "its 100 meters away", I have no idea how far that is.  Put yourself in our shoes, try switching everything you do to pounds, feet, inches, etc. for a week and let us know how it goes.  Now multiply that by 300 million.  Then consider the cost and ask yourself why we haven't made the switch.