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Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

slack.engineering

51–60 of 183 posts

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#51
Tidbit:

2-22-22 was also when Russia invaded Ukraine

And Joe Bidens statement about the invasion was on 2-22-22 2:22pm on the dot.

I could not figure out the significance of this more than 11:11 was when WW1 ended, but it's probably something else.

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#52

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.

[deleted]

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#53

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?

So we could either:

a) Use a far superior date format which nearly the entire world uses by default and is better and simpler in many ways.

b) Do logic when we see dates to try workout what format the date is in.

Going with a seems like a no brainer...

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#54

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.

It's because people for hundreds of years have been saying "March second, nineteen sixty two" which they then write out in that order. As a programmer, peoples' frustrations are understandable, but you're a bit naïve if you think even a percentage point of the speaking population of the world knows or is concerned with big endian-ness or sortability. However they speak English, at least in America, in that order, and that's the way they write it. Europeans only got it a little better.

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#55

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?

Yeah, but what about that party that I threw on 10/11/12. Did I set it for November 12, 2010, or October 11 in 2012? Or somewhen else?

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it generates configurations for Mcrouter. Could be MemCache-Router Instance Borker.

I think you meant Broker, but the misspelling is an act of genius since we are talking about downtime caused by an infrastructure failure.

Does it make it less of an act of genius if it was intentional?

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#57
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's because people for hundreds of years have been saying "March second, nineteen sixty two" which they then write out in that order. As a programmer, peoples' frustrations are understandable, but you're a bit naïve if you think even a percentage point of the speaking population of the world knows or is concerned with big endian-ness or sortability. However they speak English, at least in America, in that order, and…

> Europeans only got it a little better.

There is a reasonable argument for little endian dates (as in the least significant information is usually the most relevant as it changes most often), but apart from the "it has been like this forever" I don't see any reasonable argument for middle endian date formats. Then again, the US is notoriously resistant to the metric system too.

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#58
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's because people for hundreds of years have been saying "March second, nineteen sixty two" which they then write out in that order. As a programmer, peoples' frustrations are understandable, but you're a bit naïve if you think even a percentage point of the speaking population of the world knows or is concerned with big endian-ness or sortability. However they speak English, at least in America, in that order, and…

Have they not been doing the same with "fourth of July"? Or is this an exception?

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?)

November 21, 1812

What do I win?

Re: Slack’s Incident on 2-22-22

#60
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It may not have happened to you yet, but someday you'll see a date somewhere other than this post.
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