Hot take: going from biggest to smallest unit is best
this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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go away robot with your beep boop propaganda humans are supreme and not computers we aren't saying our dates like a file manager
If you want a properly self-organising file structure, going by least changing unit to most changing unit is absolutely the correct way to go
For sorting files by date (yyyy/mm/dd), sure, but for keeping track of what date it is today, dd/mm/yyyy is the only right way.
Ah, the "human scale" fahrenheit argument.
Not really, no. Some things are best for one thing, others are best for another, and Fahrenheit is ridiculous under all circumstances.
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Why?
The first one is best for sorting files because it's basically like a Drive>Directory>Subdirectory structure, which makes things easy to seperate and find in a large amount of data.
Conversely, when you're keeping track of what day it is today, what you're doing this week etc, it's much more helpful to have the days first in mind because they're more relevant for THAT than what year it is.
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ISO8601
No it isnt. We arent computers, we are humans. In most uses, the year is the least relevant information for us. The most important information is the day, which should be in front. And computers can be programmed to understand the date in whichever format we want.
If the year isn’t important than why are you saying it at all
Also it’s not yyyy/mm/dd for computer sake, it’s most convenient for humans because it has the most variations. If you’re searching through 100 years of records then finding the year first is most convenient because you’ve ruled out 99%. For computers it doesn’t really matter because they can go through all the data much quicker than we can
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I agree, so easy to sort stuff like that. :)
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(other than posting too early for Americans to get the joke)
Not for us night shifters, silly
Forget about ISO 8601 and customary standards, let's use SI units. Approximately 63 838 093.83 kiloseconds have passed since the beginning of the so-called "common era" in Greenwich.
The American system is kind of weird in some ways, but on the other hand it's just writing it the way we say it out loud. December 12, 2023.
Do Europeans say it out loud the other way since you write it that way? 12 of December, 2023 for example.
Edit: It does sound like basically everyone writes it the way they say it out loud. Language is an interesting thing! Thanks for the insights everyone.
In the UK most folks would say it "12th of December", prioritising the day of the month over the month...
Which begs the question, why prioritise saying the month first?
The day is going to have much more of an affect on the average person's day to day life than what month it is, so it feels natural to prioritise stating the day first.
I don't think it's that deep, it's just how we say it over here. People do sometimes say it the other way, too, it's just less common. If someone is just talking about a date in the same month we're currently in we usually just say the number without the month (the 12th). It's interesting to hear it really does seem to mimic the way people say it out loud in every case so far in these replies!
Well if we're talking day to day life, when I ask someone what day it is, they're not going to say "It's December 12th 2023". They're just gonna say "The 12th" because it's true the month doesn't really matter day to day.
I think the only time people use the full date is on like official forms where the month is more relevant. Also this is America, we don't care about average people's day to day, just businesses and money and cheeseburgers
In German we also say it in the order as we write it.
12.12.2023 Zwölfter Dezember 2023 Zwölf = twelve ter = th
We say 12th December. Sooo yeah....
In Britain you could say it either way round and nobody would care. Except we tend to say *'twelfth' * rather than *'twelve' * but yeah, totally normal thing to do here.
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In Russia we absolutely say "12th of December, 2023".
12 декабря 2023.
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Yes, saying "December 12th" sounds incredibly American to the point I can't read it not in an American accent.
Yep, in Dutch we'd say "het is 12 December 2023". When talking about dates I also say "it's the 12th of December 2023" in English, but that's probably a bit weird for English speakers.
It's not weird for the British
I don't think it's weird, it just sounds a little more formal.
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Dane here to add that we say it tolvte December 2023 with tolvte meaning twelveth. Saying it the other way around would basically only happen if you forgot to specify the date or add it as an afterthought.
"Det er desember den tolvte" (norwegian) sounds weird
You can say two fewer words with the American version. “It’s December 12th” compared to “it’s the 12th of December”.
you don't have to say the and of can just get reduced to the point it's almost not even said
You can also just say it’s the 12th since basically everyone knows what month it is when they ask the date!
I still use imperial and other US standards because I was born here and have never lived anywhere else 😎
I always use MM/DD and YYYY/MM/DD for data and cataloguing. It's an ISO, but kind of a hybrid in its half US and reverse non-US.
US format is just odd in normal day use though since people most commonly need to know a day's date. Not often do people need to first remember what month it is.
"It's December!"
"Okay. Kind of knew that. But is it 11th or 12th?"
"Oh. It's the 12th."
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Let's all say it this way now:
Today is 2023, December 12. The time as of this comment being written is 15:28 (3:28pm) GMT.
Should be UTC instead of GMT.
They're technically the same anyway, only the name is different.
Also, I hate the name UTC, simply because the order of the letters of the acronym don't match up with the first letters of the words of which the acronym stands for, which is Coordinated Universal Time, and not Universal Time Coordinated like I always thought.
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12/12/23?
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