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Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

slack.engineering

31–40 of 183 posts

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#31

That date format is actually the worst I have ever encountered. m-d-y, with year in 2 digits, numbers not zero-padded, US "order" yet using dashes. It's like a moderator of /r/ISO8601 came up with the worst possible format on purpose . Am I missing something?

Came here to complain specifically about this. 2022-02-22 is unambiguous, big endian, and sorts nicely. IDK why society still uses any other date formats considering how international everything is.

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#32
post #4

McRib is a hilarious name for a service

I certainly wouldn't trust it's availability. (The original McDonald's McRib sandwich is well known for only being sold a limited time.) So "Mcrouter" comes from Memcache-Router, then the obvious McDonalds jokes are made and someone cleverly suggests "Mcrib" for the next service. But I can't think what the backronym would be for it. Memcache Ring Buffer maybe. Or Broker.

RIB is a common term in networking for "Routing Information Base" (being the set of all routes which could be chosen to be installed in the routing table (or FIB -- "Forwarding") by the control plane. I don't know that this is the actual etymology but it's not implausible.

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#33

That date format is actually the worst I have ever encountered. m-d-y, with year in 2 digits, numbers not zero-padded, US "order" yet using dashes. It's like a moderator of /r/ISO8601 came up with the worst possible format on purpose . Am I missing something?

It's a shortened version of "February 22, 2022"

It doesn't seem that bad to turn it into 2-22-22.

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really that hard. Like the imperial system, Americans just memorize how it works as children and don’t think about it anymore. Think about it like speaking a different language, except with numbers and not words.

The complaint isn't about the particular other order, but the fact that the order is ambiguous. In this case that doesn't matter, but often it does. Americans memorize inches and yards, and often also memorize centimeters and meters, and working with either is fine, but we're not so often faced with numbers where it might be inches or centimeters and we have to figure out which (and when we are, it's sometimes a pain…

Context matters in your pasta scenario.

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#35

That date format is actually the worst I have ever encountered. m-d-y, with year in 2 digits, numbers not zero-padded, US "order" yet using dashes. It's like a moderator of /r/ISO8601 came up with the worst possible format on purpose . Am I missing something?

I mean, there is literally no way to confuse it with another date, unless you go back 100 years, when Slack didn't exist. There is no 22nd month, so we know the 22s are the day and the year, leaving only the 2 to be the month. Is it really that difficult to parse?

That particular date is possible to understand, but the date format is not. (Is is really that fun to try to figure out what 12-11-21 means ?)

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

This sort of handwavy conspiracy thinking is distressingly common. What basis do you have for your suspicion? Is it just “big company bad”?

I choose to believe it is not common thinking but instead commonly verbalized among the minority with such thoughts.

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#37
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The complaint isn't about the particular other order, but the fact that the order is ambiguous. In this case that doesn't matter, but often it does. Americans memorize inches and yards, and often also memorize centimeters and meters, and working with either is fine, but we're not so often faced with numbers where it might be inches or centimeters and we have to figure out which (and when we are, it's sometimes a pain…

Context matters in your pasta scenario.

Context also matters in the date parsing scenario. 11/12/22 could be several different dates depending on the context.

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#39
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context matters in your pasta scenario.

Context also matters in the date parsing scenario. 11/12/22 could be several different dates depending on the context.

Yeah, and in this post, it's clear what it is.
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