It’s in sort order. Even if you use it for things that don’t understand dates, they sort properly because the day is the last part, month is the middle part, and year is the first part. If you include hours, minutes or seconds, the sort order is still preserved.
Speaking of things that don’t understand dates, because there are no slashes, you can easily use it in file names, directories, and anything else that treats slash as a special character. In addition, if you include the time part, because it uses “T” to separate the date and time, it doesn’t use a space, so once again it can be easily used anywhere where a space might cause issues.
To be fair, the time separators don’t behave well on all implementations of filesystem access by filename. Need to use underscores or omit them at times.
Except I can’t get behind the time part of it, personally. I can see the point of doing GMT with the offset if you’re working across multiple timezones, but it’s overkill for situations where you aren’t.
If you work at a company where all of its offices are in the same time zone and you’re time-stamping logs, then it’s more expedient for understanding and placing an event in time against other things to use local time.
Unless everything is already standardized as GMT with offset I guess, but I feel like down that route lies madness.
“I got your email at 20:37:45-7:00” is a few more steps than “I got your email at 1:37PM”.
It’s not a big hurdle, but I try to design for the newest member on the team scrambling in panic rather than a calm cool professional already familiar with conventions.
Now, as soon as we do start dealing with multiple time zones I would just cut my custom time formatting string down to the shorthand to have the scripting language output in the full ISO 8601 format. But until then, being able to easily sort the the date properly and having the time be more human readable is a more “workable” compromise.
same. even if they give a different format, because fuck that I’m not thinking about what arbitrary format you want me to use, I see a date field and I’m filling it out with the proper date format
I shorthand it verbally unless I’m giving a full date, but typed, it’s almost always yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss (whichever part of that is relevant).
I do this because I believe it’s the most logical, it sorts properly without having to use a datetime library, and it can’t be confused with another system (is 12-1-2026 in the future or the past? No way to know just by looking at it).
Just shortening it to MM-dd could cause confusion with anyone not in the US so I’ll typically include the year as well (also useful if I wind up having to look at old notes or emails to not have to figure out the year I meant … Which has happened more than once …)
Only a truly insane person would use mm-dd-yy in conversation. “Want to go to a hockey game with me ten seventeen twenty-six?” Or worse, “…oh four oh seven twenty-seven.” Pure madness.
Conversationally, mmm d yy or d mmm yy (usually just shortened to mmm d or d mmm) is where it’s at.
yes, I’ll send dates as mm-dd in my personal life as well. only when discussing exact dates for scheduling things, otherwise in conversational messaging it’s mmmm dd
like if we’re talking about when we want to go do x activity, I’ll propose August 8th. but if we’re scheduling trip dates, it’s 08-08 through 09-12
ISO 8601
As for why it’s better:
To be fair, the time separators don’t behave well on all implementations of filesystem access by filename. Need to use underscores or omit them at times.
This is the way.
This is the way.
This is the (year-month-) day.
ISO would be great, but sadly OmegaStar doesn’t support ISO timestamps yet.
Wtf is an omega star?
The last star of the Greek alphabet? 🤷🏻
A Warrior Cats and Omegaverse crossover character
What’s a warrior cat
RFC 3339
💯
Except I can’t get behind the time part of it, personally. I can see the point of doing GMT with the offset if you’re working across multiple timezones, but it’s overkill for situations where you aren’t.
How so, out of curiosity?
If you work at a company where all of its offices are in the same time zone and you’re time-stamping logs, then it’s more expedient for understanding and placing an event in time against other things to use local time.
Unless everything is already standardized as GMT with offset I guess, but I feel like down that route lies madness.
“I got your email at 20:37:45-7:00” is a few more steps than “I got your email at 1:37PM”.
It’s not a big hurdle, but I try to design for the newest member on the team scrambling in panic rather than a calm cool professional already familiar with conventions.
Now, as soon as we do start dealing with multiple time zones I would just cut my custom time formatting string down to the shorthand to have the scripting language output in the full ISO 8601 format. But until then, being able to easily sort the the date properly and having the time be more human readable is a more “workable” compromise.
Yeah, the time part should obviously be written in Swatch Internet Time, he writes at @910.
Not shit enough for a shitpost.
It’s great, and standard for software. But do any of y’all communicate dates like this in your personal life?
Like “want to go to a hockey game with me 2026-10-17?” As cursed as mm-dd-yy is, it feels a lot more natural in conversation.
I absolutely fill out dates in iso 8601 any time I’m required to sign a form.
I like your style. I’ll start doing that, (unless a format is specified, because I’m no protocol breaker.)
same. even if they give a different format, because fuck that I’m not thinking about what arbitrary format you want me to use, I see a date field and I’m filling it out with the proper date format
Yes, kind of.
I shorthand it verbally unless I’m giving a full date, but typed, it’s almost always yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss (whichever part of that is relevant).
I do this because I believe it’s the most logical, it sorts properly without having to use a datetime library, and it can’t be confused with another system (is 12-1-2026 in the future or the past? No way to know just by looking at it).
Just shortening it to MM-dd could cause confusion with anyone not in the US so I’ll typically include the year as well (also useful if I wind up having to look at old notes or emails to not have to figure out the year I meant … Which has happened more than once …)
Only a truly insane person would use mm-dd-yy in conversation. “Want to go to a hockey game with me ten seventeen twenty-six?” Or worse, “…oh four oh seven twenty-seven.” Pure madness.
Conversationally, mmm d yy or d mmm yy (usually just shortened to mmm d or d mmm) is where it’s at.
yes, I’ll send dates as mm-dd in my personal life as well. only when discussing exact dates for scheduling things, otherwise in conversational messaging it’s mmmm dd
like if we’re talking about when we want to go do x activity, I’ll propose August 8th. but if we’re scheduling trip dates, it’s 08-08 through 09-12
I spell out the month, but I’m fancy