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Let's settle this, which date format is the best?
- Thread starter Lightning Count
- Start date
I prefer what I'm used to and the format that successfully mimics the way I say it out loud - so MMDDYYYY
Year-month-day has the best logical/technical case for it, being in order of most significant digits to least, and being lexographically sortable into proper time sequence as a result.
While the European day-month-year order is superficially more sensible than month-day-year, I can't think of a reason the distinction is meaningful or advantageous in practice. So between those two, I don't think it actually matters—it's just about which convention you're used to, or whichever matches the way dates are spoken in your language.
While the European day-month-year order is superficially more sensible than month-day-year, I can't think of a reason the distinction is meaningful or advantageous in practice. So between those two, I don't think it actually matters—it's just about which convention you're used to, or whichever matches the way dates are spoken in your language.
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Gotta go with MM/DD/YYYY
As nice as YYYY/MM/DD is, it makes no sense when you're logically thinking about how your brain processes time. DD/MM/YYYY I will take too but the year out front makes no sense since it's the one that changes the most. Month and day sit forever pretty much and never change. The month is the one that changes the least so you would want the one that changes the least in the front, then the two that change the most.
As nice as YYYY/MM/DD is, it makes no sense when you're logically thinking about how your brain processes time. DD/MM/YYYY I will take too but the year out front makes no sense since it's the one that changes the most. Month and day sit forever pretty much and never change. The month is the one that changes the least so you would want the one that changes the least in the front, then the two that change the most.
OP
OP
Wrong.
The US date format is stone dead last in the poll. America holding that l here big time.
?? You're sorting alphabetically by file name/folder name."When is your birthday?"
Dec. 25, 2021
MM, DD, YYYY makes the most sense to me.
Even using computers I sort this way.
... how do months change less than days? (If I understood what you mean by "change" correctly)
And even then it doesn't reaaaally make sense, because the logic is dumb, it's applying the gramatical rules of a sentence to something that is not a sentence but a date format meant to be understood "universally". Date formats aren't "english". The only way this would make sense is by a completely backwards after the fact justification.
That's not my actual screen, lol.
I was just using that as an example of the date format. I sort my actual files by date if I can.
This pic is sorting by name.
One thing I notice that I find jarring when I see American news clips is the presenter saying "December one twenty twenty-one", as opposed to in Britain we'd say "December first twenty twenty-one" (order aside).
Is that common or just a quirk with some presenters? I think it was Brian Williams I'm remembering but definitely not the only one I've seen do it.
Is that common or just a quirk with some presenters? I think it was Brian Williams I'm remembering but definitely not the only one I've seen do it.
Largest to smallest. That said MM/DD/YY just feels more relevant to the average interactions a person might have to me than DD/MM/YY. Like YY/MM/DD has clear advantages in a lot of situations, especially for like computers and cataloging/tracking stuff. But for normal human interactions I feel like MM/DD is the most relevant. You tell me there's a wedding or concert or release of some kind coming up, then the Month that it occurs is the most relevant piece of information as it's them most unique and easiest to grasp/remember and sort relation wise to other events you might be comparing it to and then followed by the actual day of said month which is more specific information and less unique. It's easy to remember so and so's birthday is in March and then work your way to the actual day of the month than other way around. And then Year gets tacked on at the end because it's often the least relevant and so it's an after thought that can be included or just left out entirely most often.
I can't find the intro where he does it but he's doing a similar thing when talking about thE chart in this clip.
Watch The 11th Hour With Brian Williams Highlights: December 1 | MSNBC
Get the latest news and commentary from Brian Williams weeknights on The 11th Hour. » Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbcMSNBC delivers ...
youtu.be
Yup, this. No confusion, most useful across all circumstance … no competition.
DDMMYYYY for basic stuff, YYYYMMDD for pc stuff or more proper things (legal doc. stuff, etc).
MMDDYYYY makes absolutely zero sense unless you are spelling the month name and you're writing in English (in Spanish when you speak a date out loud, you start with the day, and in Japanese start with the year).
MMDDYYYY makes absolutely zero sense unless you are spelling the month name and you're writing in English (in Spanish when you speak a date out loud, you start with the day, and in Japanese start with the year).
Yep sadly some people have trouble admitting this.
Yes if the date is within the month a day is useful but if it's within two weeks it's easier to just say Monday or next Monday. The only time a day on its own is useful is if it's the beginning of the month and the the day is like three weeks away.
Say you are setting up a date, it's usually within a week you will just use the name of the day, let's go out Friday. Say you have birthday in two weeks you say "my birthday is next Monday".
If you are getting a follow up appointment it's usually months away, so your next appointment if in June. That movie you want to see comes out in say April. And so on. For everyday stuff month is more important than days.
DD/MM/YYYY is definitely the worst. Formatting based on that is completely useless. I will concede that YYYY/MM/DD is the the best, but MM/DD is absolutely better than DD/MM, period. US fucked up w.r.t. the metric system, but the date system is clearly superior to Europe.
Yeah, this nails it.
"Hey, you coming to my birthday next week?"
"Sure, when is it?"
"December."
No, no, it's:
AM/PM{2}-MM(MONTH){1-12}-HH{1-12}-DD{1-31}-MM(MINUTES){0-60}-SS{0-60}-YYYY{0000-9999}
All the hate for MM/DD/YYYY is surprising.
All my techy devices use this format, my computer uses this format, anytime I get bills or whatever in the mail it uses this format, documents I sign use this format, my doctor's office uses this format, basically it is everywhere.
So maybe it is a USA thing but is seems pretty common so not sure why so many think it is nonsensical or soooo wrong.
All my techy devices use this format, my computer uses this format, anytime I get bills or whatever in the mail it uses this format, documents I sign use this format, my doctor's office uses this format, basically it is everywhere.
So maybe it is a USA thing but is seems pretty common so not sure why so many think it is nonsensical or soooo wrong.
Doesn't really help out the US crowd either, you certainly don't do minutes/hours/seconds
YYYY-MM-DD team stays winning.
YYYY-MM-DD when the year matters.
MAY-27 / 27-MAY (makes no difference which) when the year doesn't matter.
Everything else is potentially ambiguous and should be avoided.
MAY-27 / 27-MAY (makes no difference which) when the year doesn't matter.
Everything else is potentially ambiguous and should be avoided.
Mm/dd/yyyy should be banned.
What abomination is that.
Ddmmyyyy is best, but I can see how yyyymmdd can be useful.
What abomination is that.
Ddmmyyyy is best, but I can see how yyyymmdd can be useful.
What's annoying is work emails where people insist on numbers and not just spell it out!! E.g. tell me 1st Feb/Feb 1st, not 02/01. It avoids any ambiguity and repetitive emails to clarify. But of course my American colleagues are anything but sensible/logical. Weirdos.
Either of the ones that are in order, obviously. You could try to make a "human-shaped" argument for M/D/Y, but in the modern world it is terrible for things to be human-shaped. Things need to be computer-shaped. This must be very obvious to Americans who work with dates in Microsoft Excel.
EDIT: Very slight edge to Y/M/D over D/M/Y, because we already decided that when writing out numbers, digits further to the left carry more weight. And it would be easier to change our date system than our number writing system.
EDIT 2: Putting heavier digits and larger units of time further to the left might actually be "better", not just an arbitrary choice. Because it has the image of describing a location to someone by specifying smaller and smaller regions.
EDIT: Very slight edge to Y/M/D over D/M/Y, because we already decided that when writing out numbers, digits further to the left carry more weight. And it would be easier to change our date system than our number writing system.
EDIT 2: Putting heavier digits and larger units of time further to the left might actually be "better", not just an arbitrary choice. Because it has the image of describing a location to someone by specifying smaller and smaller regions.
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For day to day use it's DD/MM/YYYY
for filing stuff on a computer, like photos, it's YYYY/MM/DD
for filing stuff on a computer, like photos, it's YYYY/MM/DD
Maybe that's common in America, but I would say "twenty-sixth of December twenty-twenty-one" for example.
YYYY-MM-DD for a printed date makes the most sense to me by far, same way time is best structured: HH:MM:SS, plus it sorts by default.
At least DD-MM-YYYY has a logical flow. I can't see any reason at all to have month first, none of the arguments for month-first make any kind of sense to me.
Voted MMDDYYYY because that's what we use here. But YYYYMMDD is clearly superior.
Also, I hate it how confusing MMDD and DDMM is. Wish everyone would just use YYYYMMDD.
Also, I hate it how confusing MMDD and DDMM is. Wish everyone would just use YYYYMMDD.