Xref: utzoo comp.text:2323 comp.std.internat:386
Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.std.internat
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: All numeric representation of dates
Message-ID: <1988Aug28.010835.17290@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <3900@enea.se> <1785@water.waterloo.edu> <183@dcs.UUCP> <622@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 88 01:08:35 GMT

In article <622@uwovax.uwo.ca> miller@uwovax.uwo.ca (Greg Miller) writes:
>The international standard for the representation of dates in all numeric form
>is ISO 2014.  As far as I am aware, the University of Western Ontario has
>officially adopted this format for the all numeric representation of dates.  

Of course, in (at least) English-speaking areas, where people are much more
familiar with the month names than the month numbers, using all-numeric
dates in the human interface is STUPID STUPID STUPID.

I also question the human engineering of forms that put the year first.
It is consistent, and in some sense elegant, but it is poorly adapted to
human needs.  The most important information should be first.  For most
uses of dates, that is the day number, followed by the month.

For internal forms, never seen by humans (programmers don't count :-)),
ISO numeric dates are fine.  They are also of some use in environments
where multilingual legibility takes priority over legibility in any
specific language.  Otherwise, please be sensible rather than standard!
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu