While you’re at it, switch over to DD/MM/YYYY for the date format. The only 2 configurations that make sense is that or YYYY/MM/DD. Either go general to specific or specific to general, MM/DD/YYYY makes no sense.
For purposes of this post though, RFC 3339 and ISO8601 are identical. Dates in the format YYYY-MM-DD, so 2024-08-29 is both RFC3339 and ISO8601 compliant.
Months are the craziest, weirdest, stupidest measure humanity has used for this long. ISO8601 week dates make more sense, or even the French Revolutionary Calendar. Humans organize all of society by weeks, not by months. Compare last January to next January, or last February to next February for metrics. Do they have the same number of weekdays vs weekend days? Even if they do, do they happen at the same point in the month so you can compare the flow of the month? Now compare two weeks, and that’s apples to apples. Group by weeks instead of months and your irregular, bumpy graph smooths right out. We only hang on to Gregorian months out of inertia.
Months are one of the best ways for a low-tech/pre-tech culture to keep track of dates (using the Zodiac for something it can actually do—act as a calendar you can see no matter where you are in the world).
Keeping them around is a sensible fail-safe in case some nuclear power sets us back into the dark ages.
It makes sense because of the way we say the date - eg today is November 21st, 1999. We don’t usually say it’s the 21st of November in conversation.
Eta: I wasn’t giving any value statement for the date order lol. Just explaining the rationale for why the date is written in that order - that’s how people talk. If linguistics as a concept bothers you, well… that’s on you.
Sure, other countries do and that’s fine too. I’m not saying it’s good or bad or placing any value on it because it’s not that big of a deal to me. And I used to regularly deal with this because I’d write dates for official international paperwork pretty often.
I’m simply saying the reason we order our dates the way we do, and are resistant en masse to changing it, has to do with the way we say the date and so it makes the most sense to the general public to write as we speak. I literally don’t care how the date is written because I can and have done both. I’m not prescribing action here either.
Here in the UK we would say “I will visit you on the 19th of September” for example. I have never heard anyone say the month first. It’s just different custom. We also drive on the other side of the road…! At the beginning it would have been helpful if the world would have agreed on a standard either way. Then it would stop confusion. (And less car accidents from people on holiday/vacation on the wrong side of the road! 😅
Right, we’d automatically just say September 19th here.
It’s also why we say September 11th, and why “4th of July” is said the way it is - it’s a special day so it gets ordered differently to draw attention to it and to make it appear like a more formal holiday, since saying Day of Month is considered a more formal way of speaking here. Juneteenth also follows the Month/Day naming scheme.
No one says that in the US like that lol. Like say that sentence out loud, that’s so long and exhausting and stilted for no reason. If my friend said the date to me like that, i would think they were upset about something or being weird. We’d automatically switch it over and say “August 31st, 2024,” or even “8/31/24” because when people ask for the date while writing a check, for instance, they are going to write it numerically anyway.
Idk what’s the point of your argument. To gaslight me in how everyday Americans talk?
“31st of what?”
You had to invite the other speaker in this scenario to mirror your format before they’d actually imitate the stilted way of saying “31st of August.” Not even in your fantasies do Americans talk like that naturally.
I’m not even saying we SHOULD keep it that way - it makes things confusing at times. Just that common use has kept it ordered this way.
I wouldn’t even notice it as unusual, even though it isn’t my usual order. It could vary by region or profession, or maybe it’s just you that notices it this acutely. In plain English emails and other narrative text, I always use “Sat Aug 31” (adding the year only when ambiguous), which is short but complete, and includes the day of the week, which is much more important to humans than the month anyway.
While you’re at it, switch over to DD/MM/YYYY for the date format. The only 2 configurations that make sense is that or YYYY/MM/DD. Either go general to specific or specific to general, MM/DD/YYYY makes no sense.
No, switch to ISO8601
Bonus benefit - files starting with ISO dates sort alphabetically 🧠
that’s already how i save versions of my files. dd-mm-yy doesn’t make sense with files.
Overly strict for anything day to day, overly permissive for anything important.
RFC 3339 is where it’s at.
TIL.
For purposes of this post though, RFC 3339 and ISO8601 are identical. Dates in the format YYYY-MM-DD, so 2024-08-29 is both RFC3339 and ISO8601 compliant.
Not an expert, just spent around 2 minutes looking at https://ijmacd.github.io/rfc3339-iso8601/
Where
Months are the craziest, weirdest, stupidest measure humanity has used for this long. ISO8601 week dates make more sense, or even the French Revolutionary Calendar. Humans organize all of society by weeks, not by months. Compare last January to next January, or last February to next February for metrics. Do they have the same number of weekdays vs weekend days? Even if they do, do they happen at the same point in the month so you can compare the flow of the month? Now compare two weeks, and that’s apples to apples. Group by weeks instead of months and your irregular, bumpy graph smooths right out. We only hang on to Gregorian months out of inertia.
Months are one of the best ways for a low-tech/pre-tech culture to keep track of dates (using the Zodiac for something it can actually do—act as a calendar you can see no matter where you are in the world).
Keeping them around is a sensible fail-safe in case some nuclear power sets us back into the dark ages.
If that were true, intercalary months shouldn’t have been necessary.
I’m pretty sure that “oh, shoot, things got wonky… toss a 13th month in here real quick” is due to people trying to force months to fit weeks.
It’s the opposite of what I was saying about the role that months play in timekeeping & how they work.
ALSO, the same can be said for weeks & leap days… so if it’s a point against months, it’s just as much a point against weeks.
Not a problem for the FRC, and 2023-W20 compares just fine with 2024-W20. Same part of the year, and the weekend is in the same spot.
Honestly can’t tell if you are joking but I really hope you are
DD/MM/YYYY is absolutely crazy. There is only one format that makes sense.
Just draw the triangle the other way for DD/MM/YYYY. It makes sense that people want to know the day first, that is the most important part tbh
Just draw it wrong and it will make sense!
No, the most important part is having a standard to conform to that makes sense, like ISO 8601…
It makes sense because of the way we say the date - eg today is November 21st, 1999. We don’t usually say it’s the 21st of November in conversation.
Eta: I wasn’t giving any value statement for the date order lol. Just explaining the rationale for why the date is written in that order - that’s how people talk. If linguistics as a concept bothers you, well… that’s on you.
Other countries do
Sure, other countries do and that’s fine too. I’m not saying it’s good or bad or placing any value on it because it’s not that big of a deal to me. And I used to regularly deal with this because I’d write dates for official international paperwork pretty often.
I’m simply saying the reason we order our dates the way we do, and are resistant en masse to changing it, has to do with the way we say the date and so it makes the most sense to the general public to write as we speak. I literally don’t care how the date is written because I can and have done both. I’m not prescribing action here either.
Well bully for them. They aren’t 'Murica, and you can’t make us do anything we don’t want to!
/s but not really. It’s far too accurate for far too many of my countrymen
Here in the UK we would say “I will visit you on the 19th of September” for example. I have never heard anyone say the month first. It’s just different custom. We also drive on the other side of the road…! At the beginning it would have been helpful if the world would have agreed on a standard either way. Then it would stop confusion. (And less car accidents from people on holiday/vacation on the wrong side of the road! 😅
Yeah linguistics are interesting for sure!
Right, we’d automatically just say September 19th here.
It’s also why we say September 11th, and why “4th of July” is said the way it is - it’s a special day so it gets ordered differently to draw attention to it and to make it appear like a more formal holiday, since saying Day of Month is considered a more formal way of speaking here. Juneteenth also follows the Month/Day naming scheme.
I love that Lemmy dinguses are downvoting you for being completely rational and normal.
Story of my account. These words exist as a monument of spite
Try this…
"What date is it today? "
“Today is the 31st”
“31st of what?”
“The 31st of August”
“…?”
“Today is Saturday the 31st of August, 2024”
Etc.
See. It works even more so
No one says that in the US like that lol. Like say that sentence out loud, that’s so long and exhausting and stilted for no reason. If my friend said the date to me like that, i would think they were upset about something or being weird. We’d automatically switch it over and say “August 31st, 2024,” or even “8/31/24” because when people ask for the date while writing a check, for instance, they are going to write it numerically anyway.
Idk what’s the point of your argument. To gaslight me in how everyday Americans talk?
You had to invite the other speaker in this scenario to mirror your format before they’d actually imitate the stilted way of saying “31st of August.” Not even in your fantasies do Americans talk like that naturally.
I’m not even saying we SHOULD keep it that way - it makes things confusing at times. Just that common use has kept it ordered this way.
In Europe, we do say 31st August. Want gaslighting, just giving examples.
Alright, that’s fine. Just not commonly said in US.
I wouldn’t even notice it as unusual, even though it isn’t my usual order. It could vary by region or profession, or maybe it’s just you that notices it this acutely. In plain English emails and other narrative text, I always use “Sat Aug 31” (adding the year only when ambiguous), which is short but complete, and includes the day of the week, which is much more important to humans than the month anyway.
Are you just completely ignorant to the subject of linguistics?
Touché.