Date formats

[robert44444uk]

Uggh, who changed the date formats? I appreciate that there are Americans as well as Brits and other EU types, it is hard to make out 2016-3-24, much easier to make our 24 Mar 2016.

Or am I imagining things have changed

[axn]

You're not imagining things.

http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=21095 - and thus it came to pass.

All I can say is, you'll get used to it (eventually).

[CRGreathouse]

Thank goodness. I missed the poll, but I'm all in favor of the move.
https://xkcd.com/1179/

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

Thank goodness. I missed the poll, but I'm all in favor of the move.
https://xkcd.com/1179/

One would argue that our previous format was not a numerical format, and thus the argument here does not apply

I didn't vote in the poll because although I do care and I don't want something else, I was torn between the international standard-ness of the new format versus the especially easy to read old format. But I guess others decided for me

[pinhodecarlos]

Always been taught that date should be like 24/03/2016 because when we write in full would be "Thursday, 24th of March of 2016". How do you say for 2016/03/24?

[retina]

Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos

Always been taught that date should be like 24/03/2016 because when we write in full would be "Thursday, 24th of March of 2016". How do you say for 2016/03/24?

2016 March 24. No big deal. But that is only for English. Some other languages have different ways of expressing dates, especially the months. Some other languages are easier/clearer and some are harder/weirder.

[BudgieJane]

Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos

Always been taught that date should be like 24/03/2016 because when we write in full would be "Thursday, 24th of March of 2016". How do you say for 2016/03/24?

You can still say is as 24th March 2016, or March 24th 2016, or whatever your normal method of saying the date is. The biggest benefit of using the ISO date format is you can sort on it without having to mess around with numbers because they are in the best order for sorting (slowest moving numbers first) already.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by BudgieJane

The biggest benefit of using the ISO date format is you can sort on it without having to mess around with numbers because they are in the best order for sorting (slowest moving numbers first) already.

At work I append the dates in this format to filenames often, so I can sort by file name for document name and date. Also, for ID'ing samples we have a format that utilizes a code of 2 character site code, 2 character test type code, 2 character specific part code, then YYMMDD. Makes sorting nice.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by robert44444uk

Uggh, who changed the date formats? I appreciate that there are Americans as well as Brits and other EU types, it is hard to make out 2016-3-24, much easier to make our 24 Mar 2016.

Or am I imagining things have changed

It's easy in a language such as English and German in which the name of thethird month begins with 'Mar'. I've spent quite a bit of time in a country in which the third month is called Březen.

All in all. I think the big-edian purely numerical format is easier.

[CRGreathouse]

I don't really see the difficulty in reading ISO dates. (I agree about the ugliness of the T separator, though.) I've had great difficulties dealing with US vs. UK dates and ISO seems much easier than figuring out which of the two is intended.

[NBtarheel_33]

FWIW, PrimeNet reports dates as YYYY-MM-DD, so it probably makes sense for the forum to follow suit.