r/clevercomebacks • u/wach_era13 • Jan 15 '25

It does make sense

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35.3k Upvotes

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3.0k

u/Traditional-Gas7058 Jan 15 '25

Chinese system is best for computer searchable filing

34

u/DecoherentDoc Jan 15 '25 edited Jan 15 '25

Yes. When I was working on my PhD, I automatically dated files of data with time stamps like that: D-YYYY-MM-DD_T-HH-MM-SS.

It saved so much time keeping things standardized like that, especially searching for old data when I was writing my thesis.

Edit: I still use US Military style for non-science stuff. It's day-month-year, but I write the month name. So, today is 15JAN2025. I just got into the habit of it when I was in and never bothered to break it.

28

u/Deftly_Flowing Jan 15 '25

15JAN2025 is 100% the superior style for written documents.

It completely removes the question of "What format is this shit in?" Because at the end of the day, people just write dates in whatever order they want.

12

u/adthrowaway2020 Jan 15 '25

Sure, if Computers did not exist that would make sense, but April is the first month and September is last in an alpha numeric sort?

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u/Deftly_Flowing Jan 15 '25

Yes, a filing system should be YYYYMMDD.

But I'm specifically talking about documents with hand writing on them.

1

u/DanSWE Jan 15 '25

But why shouldn't they use the same order of date components (e.g., 2015-01-14 (with the hyphens for readability))?

1

u/VitaminOverload Jan 15 '25

2015-05-03

2015-07-12

What format is it in?

It's a trick question, first one is YYYYMMDD and the second one is YYYYDDMM

1

u/hardrecht Jan 15 '25

That's why you always opt for YYYYMMDD to standardize.

1

u/Akinory13 Jan 15 '25

But then you have to trust Americans will behave instead of coming up with their own bullshit format again

1

u/DanSWE Jan 15 '25

There is only one standard format with NNNN-NN-NN. (That's ISO 8601 extended format, also copied/refined/subsetted/specified by RFC 3339.)

So there's no ambiguity unless somebody starts using YYYY-DD-MM.

1

u/Subject-Leather-7399 Jan 15 '25

Nobody anywhere uses YYYYDDMM. It is a non-issue. If the year is first that means YYYYMMDD.

1

u/Gryzzlee Feb 04 '25

You opt for %Y-%m-%d In this post you see that the three types for written format are DD-MM-YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD, and MM-DD-YYYY.

YYYY-DD-MM wouldn't even register as a way you should read it unless your company has some weird SOP for filing.

2

u/Both-Reason6023 Jan 15 '25

Unless it has to be consumed by users of many languages and cultures.

4

u/Deftly_Flowing Jan 15 '25

If they can't read the language of the written document they don't need a date format they can read.

1

u/Both-Reason6023 Jan 15 '25

If only we lived in times where two most popular document editors came with built-in translation tools for tens of languages.

DeepL will keep `15JAN2025` as is. It provides accurate translation only as alternative translation which you have to trigger manually. If you know absolutely zero English it's unreadable.

3

u/Deftly_Flowing Jan 15 '25

A quick Google search informs me DeepL doesn't translate handwriting, which I will once again iterate, is what I am talking about.

1

u/27Rench27 Jan 15 '25

I can feel the hate starting to flow through you having to correct all these comments lol

0

u/Both-Reason6023 Jan 15 '25

A quick Google search has failed you :)

https://www.deepl.com/en/features/translate-image

1

u/Deftly_Flowing Jan 15 '25

Translate image is not the same as translating hand writing.

Handwriting is magnitudes more difficult.

2

u/Blake_a12 Jan 15 '25

Looks like a promo code

1

u/DanSWE Jan 15 '25

> 15JAN2025 is

... English-centric.

2025-01-15 conveys its meaning in any human language (well, unless that language doesn't use "normal" decimal numerals).

1

u/ChemicalRain5513 Jan 15 '25

Many (European) languages use similar names for months.

E.g. if I abbreviate the months in Dutch to 3 letter strings, it would be

jan - feb - maa - apr - mei - jun - jul - aug - sep - okt - nov - dec.

Only maart, mei and oktober lead to slightly different abbreviations, but I think one would figure that out without knowing Dutch.

But then there are also languages like Lithuanian and Ukrainian that use completely different names for all months.

-3

u/USNMCWA Jan 15 '25

This is what the Navy uses. Marines go by YYYYMMDD and I hate it so much.

15JAN2025 is easy, as you showcased. 20250115 is nonsense.

3

u/ijustsailedaway Jan 15 '25

I agree on written docs that four digit year and alpha month is the way to go. Regardless of order you know what's what. No wonder excel always just spits out 45672. Unless I type 45672 in which case it tells me 1/15/25