TheOneKEA wrote:
Mrs Redboots wrote:

TheOneKEA wrote to uk.transport.london on Mon, 7 Feb 2005:

Does anyone know if anything will be happening on this date at that
station?


(A) What date? We don't have 28 months in a year..... (sorry, but
doing day-month-year is not only counter-intuitive, it's also
American!)

*shrug*

I tend to use either MMDDYYYY or YYYYMMDD.

Language is there to enable us to communicate.

No only does MMDDYYYY as a date format make no sense at all but, as it
is used in only a relatively small area, using it anywhere else hinders
rather than helps communication.

Also look at the group title.

On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 19:16:29 +0000 (UTC), Stephen Osborn
wrote:

No only does MMDDYYYY as a date format make no sense at all but, as it
is used in only a relatively small area, using it anywhere else hinders
rather than helps communication.

I would agree with that.

In work (an American company, in which I frequently work with
colleagues from the US) I tend to insist on YYYY-MM-DD, as it cannot
be misinterpreted, seeing as no-one I'm aware of ever uses YYYY-DD-MM.
It also has the advantage of being easy to sort using simple sorting
techniques, as the significance of the digits decreases from left to
right just like any multi-digit number.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:24:58 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:



In work (an American company, in which I frequently work with
colleagues from the US)

Me too :-(

I tend to insist on YYYY-MM-DD, as it cannot

I use DD MMM which also cannot be misinterpreted.

k wrote:
I use DD MMM which also cannot be misinterpreted.

Unless you speak a language where the months have different names.
Then you will just be extremely confused.
--
Michael Hoffman

Michael Hoffman wrote:
k wrote:

I use DD MMM which also cannot be misinterpreted.


Unless you speak a language where the months have different names.
Then you will just be extremely confused.

Untrue. Most people who are likely to be in this position (e.g. using
the Internet, working for an international company) speak some form of
English to some extent and so will have some familiarity with English
month names.

Also, with no knowledge of the language involved it is inherent that
01xyz is in DDMMM format and so I can try and find out what xyz is in my
language. 0102 has no no inherent format.

"Stephen Osborn" wrote in message
...
Michael Hoffman wrote:
k wrote:

I use DD MMM which also cannot be misinterpreted.


Unless you speak a language where the months have different names.
Then you will just be extremely confused.

Untrue. Most people who are likely to be in this position (e.g. using the
Internet, working for an international company) speak some form of English
to some extent and so will have some familiarity with English month names.

Also, with no knowledge of the language involved it is inherent that 01xyz
is in DDMMM format and so I can try and find out what xyz is in my
language. 0102 has no no inherent format.

Whereas YYYY MM DD is very easily worked out by people who use any language
and the western calender.

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005, Brimstone wrote:

"Stephen Osborn" wrote in message
...
Michael Hoffman wrote:
k wrote:

I use DD MMM which also cannot be misinterpreted.

Unless you speak a language where the months have different names.
Then you will just be extremely confused.

Untrue. Most people who are likely to be in this position (e.g. using
the Internet, working for an international company) speak some form of
English to some extent and so will have some familiarity with English
month names.

Also, with no knowledge of the language involved it is inherent that
01xyz is in DDMMM format and so I can try and find out what xyz is in
my language. 0102 has no no inherent format.

Whereas YYYY MM DD is very easily worked out by people who use any
language and the western calender.

It's also an ISO standard, ISO 8601:

http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-serv...esandtime.html

Therefore, if you do not use it, UN black helicopters will come in the
night and take you away.

Incidentally, the ISO wants you to separate the elements with dashes and
to zero-pad, as in 2005-02-08.

tom

--
sh(1) was the first MOO

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 13:35:19 +0000 (UTC), "Brimstone"
wrote:

Whereas YYYY MM DD is very easily worked out by people who use any language
and the western calender.

Assuming you include the separators, which I did, and conventionally
for that format is the - character.

If not, it could mean two things in certain situations, and three in
others (depending on the year).

2004-02-01 fairly unambiguously means the 1st February 2004, as the
separation is clear, and I've never encountered anyone who used
YYYY-DD-MM that I can recall.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:57:05 +0000, Michael Hoffman
wrote:

k wrote:
I use DD MMM which also cannot be misinterpreted.

Unless you speak a language where the months have different names.
Then you will just be extremely confused.

I don't. I speak English. Although our company has offices
throughout the world the "official" language is English. (As its an
American company it would be, after all "everyone speaks English
(American) don't they? :-))

In article , k wrote:
On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:57:05 +0000, Michael Hoffman
wrote:

k wrote:
I use DD MMM which also cannot be misinterpreted.

Unless you speak a language where the months have different names.
Then you will just be extremely confused.

I don't. I speak English. Although our company has offices
throughout the world the "official" language is English. (As its an
American company it would be, after all "everyone speaks English
(American) don't they? :-))

Well, Ericsson, a Swedish-based and -owned multinational, also uses
English as its official language. So I think in practice, in the
business world, everyone really *does* speak English.

Similarly, I've just accepted a job with a small Stockholm-based company
95% staffed by Swedes and 100% owned by them (if I recall); its official
language is also English.

Niklas
--
"I always wanted to be a mad scientist, but never really got much past the
faintly-annoyed alchemist stage."
-- Mik