Re: Date & number format

On  5 Dec, jon@hackcraft.net wrote:

> Yes, I did say that I would *only* use 8601 in such a (human-targetted, as 
> opposed to human-readable but machine-targetted) context if I was forced to use 
> a short form, and I didn't have reliable locale data on the user.

  Can you give an example of being "forced" ?


>>   Mostly because it is hopelessly unintuitive, unlogical, and gives us[**]
>> headaches.
> 
> How can you say it's unintuitive. Arguably it's more intuitive to dd-mm-yyyy, 
> since yyyy-mm-dd works the same way as decimal numbers (bigger denominations to 
> the left).

  Well, I can say it is unintuitive because my intuition refuses to make
  sense of it; for a more detailed explanation of something which is
  hardly objective I suggest we join a philosophy list.

  However, claiming that it is MORE intuitive than dd-mm-yyyy because it
  has the higher denomination to the left is illogical. When reading a
  date, you are - in day to day life - VERY rarely interested in the
  year. In most cases, humans scan numbers from the left to the right.

  I, and many others with me, find that we first look for the day (ie.
  at the END of the oh-so-intuitive ISO format), then the month (ie. in
  the middle) and finally the year (ie. what comes first).

  That's why *I* find it unintuitive. What anyone uses INTERNALLY in an
  application is up to them; we are discussing end-users here.

  I see no reason to be forced: always use the humanly readable and
  fairly independent-of-geographic-location format.

-- 
 -    Tina Holmboe                    Greytower Technologies
   tina@greytower.net                http://www.greytower.net/
   [+46] 0708 557 905

Received on Friday, 5 December 2003 06:17:42 UTC