Re: David Grudek/COR/AXE is out of the office.
On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 01:34:42 +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> 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.
Then, when I'm in the US, I will pick mm/dd/yy, which is obviously the
rational choice, based on US custom and usage. When I'm in the UK, I will
choose dd/mm/yy, for the same reasons. Custom and usage comes from
shorthand based on the spoken language, as I've already indicated. It
would be *irrational* to use dd/mm/yy within the context of US culture.
As I said in my original post, "backwards" depends on your viewpoint.
>> 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.
Well, now you're moving the goalposts. However, neither the US nor the UK
date shorthand is responsible for poor form design. If I'm filling out a
date on a form, and the form doesn't specify the date format, I use the
three-letter abbreviation for the month. Now, *that's* rational :)
--
....................paul
It's working as coded.
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