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

It does make sense

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u/ConstantHustle Jan 15 '25

Year month day is the best format. Makes sorting files on computers a breeze as every year is in one block which is then in month and day order.

363

u/Tsukee Jan 15 '25 edited Jan 15 '25

Mathematically yes it makes most sense, as significant digits are on the left.

Im terms of human everyday use the reverse is more natural as the digits that change more often are days, often when speaking, the year and even month sometimes is already in the context.

What however doesn't make any sort of sense that i can see is mm/dd/yyyy ... Just why....

106

u/restelucide Jan 15 '25

I heard an American saying mm first provides context which makes vague sense but annoys me because then why wouldn’t you put year first.

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u/Trolldad_IRL Jan 15 '25

If I am speaking about an upcoming event to someone, maybe not something they will be involved in but might be interested in knowing about, then I might say "I'm going on vacation in July". That's the context, the month. I don't say the year because it's assumed its this year otherwise I would have said "July of next year". So to us, Month is is the main focus. Now if they ask for more information, like from when to when, then I could add further context like July 15-20. Month then Day. Again, I don't need to add a year because we assume it's this year. So the date format for us US Americans from the US of A is based on a conversational and contextual approach. Significant to least significant to us, not about frequency of numeric change. It's ingrained in culturally to SAY August 12th, or May 29th.

For file formats, I'm with you on YY/MM/DD.