compwiz1202
macrumors 604
Former. In speaking I want to save time but still get the point across. Now writing I like to use the long date
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Why the heck does America still use outdated measurement and date units?
- Thread starter garirry
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yaxomoxay
macrumors 604
Let’s be real here.
This should be the only acceptable calendar:
And this should be the only acceptable timepiece:
Everything else is soooo boomer….
usagora
macrumors 601
Nothing "backwards" about it. I find it interesting that I and others who are "defending" the MM/DD/YYYY format here are tolerant of the different formats and recognize them as innocuous differences between countries, whereas people like you are intolerant and belittling over something so petty.
As for "logic," I simply think of it as a hierarchy. The month contains the days, so it comes first. Just like all calendars I've ever seen show it. The month is the heading at the top of the page, and all the days of the month are below it. Since the year changes so seldom comparatively, it doesn't really matter if it comes before or after the month and date (and often the year is never referenced anyway except when required for official documentation).
DaveFromCampbelltown
macrumors 68020
When I was working for a museum (whose data could be read in the future by persons from anywhere in the world) we were taught to put dates down as DD Mon YYYY, i.e. 10 Jan 2015. There was absolutely no way anybody could confuse or mis-read that. Whereas 10-01-2015 is unclear.
Cromulent
macrumors 604
Ambiguity is also present in the Imperial system. When you are talking about gallons, are you talking about British or American gallons? Same with numbers, do you mean a British billion or an American billion?
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
10-01-2015 is very clear in the US. October 1st, 2015.
If I see this: 30-01-2015, I have to do the mental translation that the day got put before the month, then figure out the month first and then the day, because there aren't 30 months.
Try putting 30-01-2015 (or anything similar) in any US website asking for a date and you won't get very far.
Cromulent
macrumors 604
Perhaps. But you have to assume MM/DD/YYYY, which means that people sending you a date also must assume the same. Seeing as the USA is an extremely small part of the world population that uses that date format, everyone else has to bend over backwards for the American people.
Edit: Only 324 million people in the world use the American system.
List of date formats by country - Wikipedia
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
I don't have to assume that. There is no one I deal with on a daily basis that is sending me a date in that format.Perhaps. But you have to assume MM/DD/YYYY, which means that people sending you a date also must assume the same. Seeing as the USA is an extremely small part of the world population that uses that date format, everyone else has to bend over backwards for the American people.
Edit: Only 324 million people in the world use the American system.
List of date formats by country - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I do have friends outside the US and when I receive an email from them or email them (both cases being rare) I might account for that. But it's not relevant to my daily life.
I'm not saying this to be/sound arrogant, it's just my reality.
usagora
macrumors 601
Exactly. I fail to see why people get so bent out of shape and condescending about such a non-issue. I communicate with people both in the EU and America and never once has it been an issue. If I'm communicating with someone from another country, I'll simply write the date in an unambiguous format (e.g. April 26 / 26 April) vs. using numerals for the month.
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usagora
macrumors 601
Also, FWIW, my dad was career US Army and to this day still writes the dates as "26 April" etc. exclusively, regardless of context. I didn't inherit that habit from him, but I do slash my 7s and Zs and use the NATO phonetic alphabet daily. I also will write my ones with the "serifs" on them (1). I've tutored German students in America before who got in trouble because their 1s are commonly handwritten like so:
. . . which will easily be mistaken as a 7 by Americans. That becomes a train-wreck for grading math papers if the teacher is unaware of this difference. One particular boy got low marks on his math work because of this, and it was like pulling teeth to break that habit for him while he was a student in the US!
. . . which will easily be mistaken as a 7 by Americans. That becomes a train-wreck for grading math papers if the teacher is unaware of this difference. One particular boy got low marks on his math work because of this, and it was like pulling teeth to break that habit for him while he was a student in the US!
It's amazing to me that anyone could possibly concern themselves with the fact that a foreign country's system of weights and measures may differ from their own, outside of an international business context.
Odds are real good that any "ambiguity" is resolved by considering one's location.
Cromulent
macrumors 604
If you are a programmer for a piece of software, that information might not be available, which is why software developers prefer YYYY/MM/DD.
ThunderSkunk
macrumors 601
Like everything else about this country, it’s out of date and a mess of incompatibility and half-baked bodges. It’s an 18th century agrarian culture trying to collapse back to the 12th. Don’t be surprised when half our population still uses British Farmer Units a century after the British Empire itself evaporated and the whole world switched to metric. It’s a pervasive one, but the least of this country’s problems. After it is mercifully broken up into several smaller countries, the ones you’ll actually want to do business with will all be metric pretty quickly, bc most of our more successful industries rely on precision machinery which is european or made for the eu market anyway. Even the woodworking biz has seen the writing on the wall ver the last 5 years. Far less costly errors working in mm & tenths.
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No wasn't ignored because it's not 'Americans', don't be silly with your insinuations please. yyyymmdd format is a logical reverse notation that is perfect for sorting dates. So very useful in for example file names or tables.
That would be rather odd for a developer, any developer who doesn't use the ISO 8601 format has some explaining to do as to why. And a statement of preference really isn't sufficient.
Herdfan
macrumors 68000
For me, I don't care which system we use. But let's all get on the same bus. There is no reason whatsoever for both SAE & Metric fasteners to exist. Pick a lane.
Basic75
macrumors 68030
That's a terrible format compared to YYYY-MM-DD because you normally want to sort by year, then month, then day, not vice versa.
When I store my dates in my SQL server (sometimes as strings to match external sources), I always store it year, month then day. Works perfectly regardless of if the field is a date, int or string...
phillytim
macrumors 68000
I'm a techie, and I find the YYYY-MM-DD date format to be the best and most logical to use.
Many times I even omit the hyphens and just use: YYYYMMDD when I prefix a file.
As an American, I am onboard to switch over and join the rest of the world with the metric system of weights & measurements - there are many positive reasons to do so.
Many times I even omit the hyphens and just use: YYYYMMDD when I prefix a file.
As an American, I am onboard to switch over and join the rest of the world with the metric system of weights & measurements - there are many positive reasons to do so.
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DaveFromCampbelltown
macrumors 68020
If you want to sort your dates, do it properly. Convert to Julian Day numbers, sort them, convert them back. You can also do arithmetic on them (like subtract 04-Jul-2013 from today) or work out how many weeks until your next birthday.
If you're in a software environment, you check the locale setting from the operating system or application software configuration and adjust various things accordingly (dates, language, currency, comma preference, etc.).
The comment I responded to was about what "software developers prefer", not how they do their job. Hardly my fault that the wording in what I responded to mentioned preference.
Yeah....you don't always have to sort something based on the order in which it appears.
Why do we need to all be on the same bus? What happened to the wonderful wonderfulness of diversity?