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ISO 8601: a better date format

kirby.kevinson.org

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Re: ISO 8601: a better date format

#281

Post by athorax »

AlanYx wrote: post #197
em500 wrote: post #73

Free versions of the actual specs: https://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/iso-tc154-wg5_n0038_i... https://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/iso-tc154-wg5_n0039_i... Or https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:8601:-1:ed-1:v1:en The ISO8601 yyyy-mm-dd format is fine and intuitive. What trips people up all the time is the ISO8601 yyyy-www-d format (year-week-weekday)[1]. People who know it well can appreciate the benefits…

The "week date" format (yyyy-www-d) in ISO8601 is IMHO why it's usually better to refer to RFC3339, which doesn't allow the week date format. So many people are unaware that the ISO8601 format allows "week date" and/or don't understand its quirks, and articles like this one, which don't even mention that ISO8601 dates can appear in this format, compound the problem.

It does mention it though, FTA: ...and a calendar where the year is separated not by months but by weeks, which is used in finances, but here we’re only interested in the basics.

Re: ISO 8601: a better date format

#283

Post by alkonaut »

systemvoltage wrote: post #271
alkonaut wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Every human likely encounters date sorting at some point. And feet and inches aren’t really any more human or natural than 4x5x2 dm or 40x50x20cm. Dividing by 10 isn’t more human either, but adding/removing zeroes or moving a decimal point is certainly easier for the human brain.

Is dm used widely wherever you’re located?

Its a pretty clumsy measurement so perhaps not “frequently” but it’s widely used yes (Scandinavia). For example windows and doors are standardized in dm, so a typical window is a 11x13 and a door is 9x21. It’s going to have some other measurement in reality like 1120x1310mm but the dm measurement is still used to reference the rough size.

Re: ISO 8601: a better date format

#284

Post by simonlc »

tpetry wrote: post #17

The article is missing one of the best features of iso 8601: it‘s string form is naturally sortable. You don‘t need any specific logic for sorting, so e.g. your filesystem will automatically sort files correctly if you prefix them with a iso 8601 date.

Most forms are sortable, though dates with a timezone specified are not sortable.

Re: ISO 8601: a better date format

#286

Post by jeff-davis »

m12k wrote: post #42
tpetry wrote: post #17

The article is missing one of the best features of iso 8601: it‘s string form is naturally sortable. You don‘t need any specific logic for sorting, so e.g. your filesystem will automatically sort files correctly if you prefix them with a iso 8601 date.

Which is a side effect of being consistent with the way we write all other numbers, with the value represented by each digit declining as we go left to right.

Lexicographic sorting does not work for numbers of different lengths, e.g. "100" and "9".

Re: ISO 8601: a better date format

#287

Post by dfox »

rollulus wrote: post #27

At the risk of nitpicking, I prefer RFC 3339, which is a profile of ISO 8601. ISO 8601 provides room for things you typically don't want, e.g. dropping time zone offsets. While I'm typing this I realise that I've never actually read the ISO 8601 spec, like probably most people here, because it's not free. I cannot even be sure it really exists.

I have read the actual ISO 8601 spec. It is somewhat typical wall of prose ISO standard that contains meaningful conformance distinctions which depend on two words in the middle of 10+ line paragraph.

For me, more significant reason to prefer RFC 3339 constrained profile is that ISO 8601 does not only mean YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.sss but also includes bunch of alternate syntaxes like YYYY-DDD. And I have one big issue with RFC3339: there are cases when the "don't care about timezone" ISO 8601 syntax is actually useful.

Re: ISO 8601: a better date format

#288

Post by dvh »

slazaro wrote: post #166
yread wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M/D/Y is a bit like the German way of reading numbers. 328 become three hundred, eight and twenty. Terrible

How about french? 99 is four twenties nineteen, 79 is sixty nineteen. Languages are fun and fascinating.

Still better then russians: ten, twenty, thirty, bag of furs, fifty, sixty, ...

Re: ISO 8601: a better date format

#290

Post by [deleted] »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #276
ginko wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>English has ~1100 million total speakers but only 318 millon native speakers, while Chinese has 918 million native speakers Why would that matter? Arguably the ideal lingua franca should have no native speakers at all as those have an unfair advantage.

> Why would that matter? Arguably the ideal lingua franca should have no native speakers at all as those have an unfair advantage. I share your vision of an explicitly taught universal language which gives no group or individual an unfair advantage. We obviously need more equality in the world. From the perspective of trying to maximize how many people with whom you are able to communicate, however, on a practical ba…

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