this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

2013-02-27 is also unambiguous.

Hey what's today's date?

It's 2025 -

No like the DAY?

Yeah, it's 2025, 02 -

Not the month, the day - What's today's actual date?

Like I was saying, if you'd let me finish, "2025 - 02 - 27"

I'm mostly joking, but when it comes to info about dates, I think the most evctive format it one that organizes the information within a heirachy that provides follow up answers.

Formatting dates as day / month / year does just that. Provides the day it is, followed by the month and year as that is the order that information is usually needed in.

I find providing the year first (or month) is much more ambiguous as neither are the day the actual date falls on.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

We need to get rid of the month/day and just refer to days by number. Today is day 121 in the year 2025, it's super clear.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Why bother with years, it’s day 1,456,7834

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

That's an interesting epoch. Almost, but not quite, 40,000 years ago

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Wow, what a relatable use-case...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago

I was said that western mindset goes from small scale to larger scale, like 02-05-2025. Hmm, maybe that's West vs East propaganda material?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

Counterpoint: What you say applies in daily life, not when querying an archive of any kind. Year-month-day is the natural sorting order if the question is "which file/folder/column in the spreadsheet is the one I need?" In which case you narrow it down to first the year, then the month, then the day.

I started using YYYY-MM-DD to name files and directories once I noticed that they then became automatically sorted chronologically when I sort the containing directory alphabetically by file name.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

If you need to ask for the current date so often, I suggest getting a watch. (not sure if joking vs predisposed for this part)

If you're asking so often about recent things then, yes, hearing the redundant parts out loud is only irksome because they've already been delivered to you (by yourself).

On the other hand, if you're asking someone when an arbitrary event happened (e.g. when reminiscing), having the year first quickens context.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

Time travelers would have to endure a few less awkward moments though.