Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/10/22/21:02:19
On Mon, 20 Oct 1997 18:29:27 +0000, "John M. Aldrich"
<fighteer AT cs DOT com> wrote:
>Very poorly. :) However, U.S. (1) dates are written with forward
>slashes, and British (2) dates are usually separated by periods.
As somebody who is British I find that a bizarre statement. We use
slashes and dashes. I don't think I have ever seen full stops
(periods) used in dates. Times, perhaps, but colons are more likely.
> I've
>worked with computer systems that use British dates, and they are a
>major pain to handle--not because they are any more or less efficient,
>but because half of the time the people forget and use the U.S. format.
That is no doubt true for you, but M/D/Y is a major pain for us.
>Since they are writing it on a form instead of freehand, it's often
>difficult to tell which is which.
I know it's easy to say but the form's designers should make it clear
what is expected.
By freehand do you mean writing the month as a word? That has the
disadvantage that people need to understand the English months and all
their possible abbreviations.
So, let's all use ISO 8601. What does the date 1997-04-02 seem to be
to you? 2nd of April or 4th of February? It is the former so you only
have to get used to the position of the year. For us the whole date is
reversed (although I don't seem to find it much of a problem).
--
Roger
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