Textual months, require translating...

Textual months, require translating...

Posted Dec 26, 2005 20:11 UTC (Mon) by sladen (guest, #27402)
In reply to: Date format by rasjidw
Parent article: SCO's 4Q and Fiscal 2005 Results: Down, down, down they go... (Groklaw)

Having textual dates lets you know which part is the month, but doesn't necessarily tell you what that month is.

If you see 2005 December 22 that's going to make sense to a good proportion of people since December/Diciembre/Décembre/Dezember are from the same root, but would you guess joulukuu (Finnish) or a month in a cyrillic script correctly?

The disadvantage with textual months is that they require translating, or knowledge of the language in which they were written; whereas a numerical date (in a visually unambiguous format) can be understood immediately. If you are in an international setting (meaning one that includes people who don't speak the same language) then using YYYY-mm-dd makes communicating more efficient.

One anecdote, when I was filling out my visa-waiver form to enter the United States... the required dates were in ISO format! I was (quietly) impressed that, even the American goverment will actually revert to sensible standards when they are the ones wanting to communicate with aliens.

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