• words_number@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I really wonder how americans were able to fuck this one up. There are three ways to arrange these and two of them are acceptable!

    Edit: Yes, I meant common ways, not combinatorically possible ways.

      • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Three ways that people actually use. YYYY-MM-DD, DD-MM-YYYY, and MM-DD-YYYY (ew).

        AFAIK no-one does YYYY-DD-MM, DD-YYYY-MM, or MM-YYYY-DD… yet. Don’t let the Americans know about these formats, they might just start using them out of spite.

          • luciferofastora@discuss.online
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            1 year ago

            What, 2023-223 for the 223rd day of the year 2023? That… is oddly appealing for telling the actual progress of the year or grouping. No silly “does this group have 31, 30, 29 or 28 members”, particularly the “is this year a multiple of four, but not of 100, unless it’s also a multiple of 400?” bit with leap days.

            You’ll have oddities still, no matter which way you slice it, because our orbit is mathematically imperfect, but it’s a start.

      • rmuk@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        Twelve ways if you count two-digit years. My nephew was born on 12/12/12 which was convenient.

    • sift@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s how the dates are typically said, here. November 6th, 2020 = 11/6/2020. [Edit: I had written 9 instead of 11 for November.] (We basically never say the sixth of November. It sounds positively ancient.) It’s easy to use, but I agree that YYYY-MM-DD is vastly superior for organization.

      • yata@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        It is a bit of a chicken and egg question though. Because do Americans not say it that way because of the date format or is that the date format because you don’t say it that way?

        Because in countries using DD.MM.YY we absolutely do say 6th of November.

        • duffman@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s probably what happened. Though I do like starting with the larger context when talking about dates, but omitting it when talking about the current month or year.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        We basically never say the sixth of November. It sounds positively ancient.

        When is your independence day, again?

        Anyway, in Australia (and, I suspect, other places that use DD/MM/YYYY) we use “{ordinal} of {month}” (11th of August), “{ordinal} {month}” (11th August), and “{month} {ordinal}” (August 11th) pretty much interchangeably. In writing but not in speaking, we also sometimes use “{number} {month}” (11 August). That doesn’t have any bearing on how we write it short form though, because those are different things. It’s not the defence many Americans seem to think it is of their insane method of writing the short form.

        • sift@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s not the defence many Americans seem to think it is of their insane method of writing the short form.

          I’ve never once been confused about a written date whilst in the US. Your country’s other-side-of-the-Earth flip-floppery on how it uses dates really doesn’t (and shouldn’t) impact our system, which we continue to use because it has proven effective and easy. Trying to stagnate an evolving culture/language is pointless and about as futile as trying to force a river to run backwards. If people start jumbling up how we do it here, like you say Australia does, then that will be right, too.

    • zagaberoo@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Do people outside of the US not say dates like “June first” etc? M/D/Y matches that. It’s really not weird at all, even if the international ambiguity is awful.

      • tchotchony@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Flemish here (aka dutch-speaking). We say first June, sixth November etc. English isn’t our native language, so M/D/Y is weird as fuck and completely illogical to us.

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Yes it is objectively weird.

        When you write down “07/01/1967” are you unaware that it is unclear whether you’re referring to July 1st or January 7th?

        And despite the fact that you’re writing something down for the express purpose of communicating information, and you’re choosing to shorten it’s written format to save time and space, you’re ok with either

        a) just leaving it ambiguous and communicating poorly

        or

        b) having to write extra words to give it context, taking up more space than just writing out “July 1st, 1967”?

        1967/06/01 clearly communicates we’re starting with the year and going biggest to smallest time increments. There is no ambiguity as to which order it’s ever in, and it’s far shorter than the full written date.

        At a fundamental user experience level, it is objectively nonsensical to choose the American date format when your goals are 1) clearly communicating a date and 2) doing it shorter than writing out the words.

        • zagaberoo@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          It’s not unclear to americans. “Objectively” is hilarious here. If it’s in the format people expect, then it’s perfectly fine in context. Sorry that US traditions don’t suit your fancy.

          It’s definitely confusing in an international context, but well-estsblished conventions don’t change easily.

          • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            It’s not unclear to americans. “Objectively” is hilarious here. If it’s in the format people expect, then it’s perfectly fine in context. Sorry that US traditions don’t suit your fancy.

            Yes, if you chose the objectively wrong way of doing something and then tell everyone that you’re always going to do it the wrong way, then yes, people will expect you to do it the dumb way. Congratulations. That’s how choosing a protocol works. That doesn’t mean that some protocols aren’t objectively worse than others.

            It’s hilarious that you think “objective” is hilarious, given that you’re reasoning is based 100% on the subjective experiences of Americans.

            • zagaberoo@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              That’s how formats work, I hate to break it to you. The ambiguity sucks, but the format itself makes perfect sense given the way americans say dates.

              • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                The ambiguity sucks, but the format itself makes perfect sense given the way americans say dates.

                We all say dates the same.

                It’s objectively dumb because it’s the format that results in ambiguity. Again, the point that it’s good cause Americans are familiar with it is a subjective criteria, since it only applies to American’s experience with using it, whereas the ambiguity of an out of order time span is an objective one.

                • zagaberoo@beehaw.org
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                  1 year ago

                  Only the combination of formats results in ambiguity. Neither format is ambiguous on its own.

                  Standardization is good, and if someone were to change it should probably be the US given the apparent worldwide consensus otherwise. That doesn’t make either format good or bad on its own.

                  What I take issue with is people acting like the US format is some kind of bizarro nonsense when it in fact makes perfect sense in terms of matching spoken dates. That is hardly a weird basis for a format.

                  Each has its tradeoffs, and which set of tradeoffs is better is a subjective matter. I agree that d/m/y makes the most sense for an international standard (if not y/m/d), but to claim that the US format itself is somehow objectively bad is silly.

                  • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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                    1 year ago

                    What I take issue with is people acting like the US format is some kind of bizarro nonsense

                    It objectively is, and Ive explained why numerous times.

                    If you don’t have an argument beyond ‘it makes sense cause we’re used to it’, then you don’t have an argument about why one is better than the other, you have a weakass dodge the conversation feelgoodism. It is the textbook definition of a subjective criteria.

                    Learn how to be fucking wrong gracefully. Jesus Christ.

      • Senchanokancho@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        In Germany we say things like “we meet on the twelfth fifth” (Zwölfter Fünfter), which is the twelfth day of the fifth month. Often times the year is also shortened to only the last two digits, so it could be twelfth fifth twenty-four in dd-mm-yy format.

        Of course we also use the names of the months, but sometimes we just number them.