Re: David Grudek/COR/AXE is out of the office.
On Mon, Dec 29, 2003 at 10:01:07AM -0500, Paul Morgan wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 01:21:12 +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> > On Sat, Dec 27, 2003 at 05:39:16AM -0500, Paul Morgan wrote:
> >> On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 00:50:16 +0000, Ken Gilmour wrote:
> >> > I believe the Americans do it backwards... 1/04/2004 being
> >> > January 4th rather than 1st of April :-).
> >>
> >> Who's doing it backwards depends, I guess, on your point of view.
> >
> > Both "4th January 2004" and "January 4th 2004" are clear; "2004/01/04"
> > is clear, and sorts well; "04/01/2004" is sadly ambiguous due to the
> > prevalence of the US date format but at least has the benefit of being
> > in a rational order (i.e. not middle-endian). "01/04/2004" just has
> > nothing to recommend it at all.
> >
> > I guess it's a religious war, but for once the superior options seem
> > technically obvious.
>
> My point was that neither is "backwards". Dates are no different than any
> other language element. Americans usually say, "January fourth, two
> thousand three" and so they write their dates that way. Brits tend to say
> "Fourth of January...". It's simply dialect stretching back centuries,
> and nothing to do with date sorting on computers.
You're talking about "4th of January", etc. I'm talking about the
meaning of "01/04/2004". Apples and oranges. If you're going to write
your dates in an abbreviated form subject to ambiguity then you should
pick a rational abbreviated form.
> In any case, software should adapt to the user, not the other way
> around.
This has nothing to do with software. The exact same problem arises on
paper forms.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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