Today's Personal Gripe

[Kip Powick]

I really get tired of trying to figure out the date...... some documents and programmes require this format;

2007/12/11

some want 12/11/2007

some want 11/12/2007

some want 11/12/07

some want 12/11/07

some want 07/11/12

some want 07/12/11

There should be a standard format and I am sure there is a "standard" for each company but their standard just happens to be different from the other "standard".

If nothing else, DND had this right.............11 Dec 07....but the computer geeks of the world wanted only digits........geeks win

[Tango Foxtrot]

Kip;

There is only one correct way to write today's date.

December 11 2007.

Nothing else is correct.

There is no month called 12. (or Dec.)

You cannot mistake the date if you write it correctly!

Tony!

[Kip Powick]

Tell that to a computer when you are filling in the "boxes" .......or when filling other government forms or applications.

The vast amount of electronic "fill ins" as well as forms are made up so that a computer can read the response and computers work on numbers. Many electronic forms reject the input if it is not entered in a specific format...it is so frustrating for those of us that are not skilled........... in the typing field.

[Guest rattler]

Kip: there is an International standard but seems that some countries (including the one south of us) chose to use their own instead. The Canadian standard is the same as the International one:

8. Is there a standard for documenting date and time?

Canadian Standard CAN Z234-4 specifies numeric representations of date and time. The recommended full format is of the form 2001-12-31 23:59:28.73 UTC. It is compatible with International Standard ISO 8601. This standard notation helps to avoid confusion in international communication caused by the many different national notations. In addition, these formats have several important advantages for computer usage compared to other traditional date and time notations. The time notation described in ISO 8601 is already the de-facto standard in almost all countries and the date notation is becoming increasingly popular.

References:

A Summary of the International Standard Date Time Notation, and  Date/Time Representations, ISO 8601

CAN Z234-4 can be obtained through Standards Council of Canada (SCC), and ISO 8601 from  International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

http://inms-ienm.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/faq_time_e.html#8

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html

[mo32a]

I totally agree Kip.

I always went from smallest division to largest i.e. day/month/year, but you never know what the other person is doing. You always hope for at least one number over 12, at least you can narrow that down to being a day. This problem has been exacerbated ever since the new millenium. Before that you could at least tie down the year part, and if you had another number over 12 you had it beat.

It used to be I could write the date on my cheques Dec 12/07 or whatever way I wanted but now they come with little boxes and want you to put year/mm/dd.

Sheesh!!

[planett]

The really proactive standard is to indicate on every form what you want the user to enter, eg. yyyy/mm/dd in gray in the boxes or beneath. Wishful thinking though, it prolly costs my whole year's salary to change these forms, so they'll just have to put up constant "mistakes".

[Moon The Loon]

While understanding the idea of a "standard", I have been using the yyyy.mm.dd format since the early 1980's. The RCMP has been using it since the 1970's.

Simple reason? Sorting. Maybe not nowadays with modern computer programs but certainly 10 years ago.

The Yanks have been using mm/dd/yyyy in numerical format forever. There'll be no changing that in the short term!

Frustrating? Yes, I agree. But so are unplowed streets one week after the snowstorm

[Guest rattler]

While understanding the idea of a "standard", I have been using the yyyy.mm.dd format since the early 1980's. The RCMP has been using it since the 1970's.

Simple reason? Sorting. Maybe not nowadays with modern computer programs but certainly 10 years ago.

The Yanks have been using mm/dd/yyyy in numerical format forever. There'll be no changing that in the short term!

Frustrating? Yes, I agree. But so are unplowed streets one week after the snowstorm

Of course if you are using a PC, the time clock in the lower right hand corner of your screen is showing Month/day/year.

If you have received a new supply of bank cheques (from some Canadian Banks) you will be forced into the US format. To satisfy banking standards, all of their new cheques have formated date boxes but most if not all have chosen " Day/Month/Year". The standard for cheques actually allows 3 different formats, ...... .... ??????

Are the Date Field Indicators below the date field mandatory?

Yes, Date Field Indicators must be printed below the date field so that it can be determined which of the three permissible numeric date formats is used (i.e. YYYYMMDD, MMDDYYYY or DDMMYYYY).  They are to be printed in a minimum of 6 pt font and a maximum of 8 pt font.

Note that the Standard accommodates a bilingual version of the Date Field Indicators (i.e. Y/A M/M D/J) for cheques using the international date format  for those organizations that wish to print a single bilingual cheque format.  See Section 5.4.1 and Figures E and E1 for details.

Printers of cheques for business clients should confirm with their clients whether the client wants the Date Field Indicators to be pre-printed, or whether the client will print the indicators at the same time as they print the date.

[Seeker]

Obviously there is no hope for the human race if we can't figure out the one best way to write the date! We might as well give up on world peace!

[Guest rattler]

Re world peace, based on our every day news reports, I think humanity has given up or perhaps they have never really wanted "World Peace".

[Kip Powick]

Of course if you are using a PC, the time clock in the lower right hand corner of your screen is showing Month/day/year

Well actually the only thing that shows on my PC is the time in the Lower Right hand corner but if I slide my cursor over the time it indicates DAY(Monday Tuesday etc), MONTH, DATE and YEAR.

However, for my own personal use I run a program and you can set it any way you want and it is always "on top" if you want it to be...a great little program that is continually updated from a selection of atomic clocks. (Snapshot shown) You will have to click on it for clarity.

[John S.]

There is only one correct way to write today's date.

December 11 2007.

+1

[Seeker]

I really prefer; year-month-day

2007-12-25

[J.O.]

On my version of XP I can change my clock settings to any format I like. I have the date shown on my screen as DD/MM/YYYY, but when I roll the mouse over the date, the screen tip shows MONTH DD, YYYY.

[Guest rattler]

On my version of XP I can change my clock settings to any format I like. I have the date shown on my screen as DD/MM/YYYY, but when I roll the mouse over the date, the screen tip shows MONTH DD, YYYY.

Same as mine but it will not let you change to Year/Month/Day which is the International Standard.