Why do you guys write in yyyy/dd/mm date format?

[YMDnotYDM20203]

Why? As I saw 3 March 2020 written as 2020/3/3, I think that you guys write in the yy/dd/mm date format? Why? Is there any history behind this?

[calibre2001]

Should be yyyy/mm/dd. This is historical convention from the past. Even Chinese addresses are in reversed order 

[Zeppa]

There are various date formats, and the yyyy/mm/dd format was introduced as an international standard to make things clearer. I usually use that.

 

If you don't mention the year, in the USA, it's common to write mm/dd, but really almost only in the USA. In the UK (where I am), it was more common to use dd/mm. Thus 4.7 could mean the fourth of July in UK usage but the seventh of April in the USA. It's only if the yyyy comes first that it becomes a bit clearer. I translate from German to English and I often write the month out in full so no one is confused. 

 

On top of everything else, in the UK we usually say the third of July, whereas in the USA they usually say July third. But the fourth of July is an exception!

 

I like your 3.3 example.

[Lu]

11 hours ago, YMDnotYDM20203 said:

I think that you guys write in the yy/dd/mm date format?

Who are 'you guys' in this question?

 

I always write out the month, to avoid international confusion. Here in the Netherlands dd/mm/yyyy is normal (or sometimes dd/mm/yy).

[imron]

1 hour ago, Zeppa said:

If you don't mention the year, in the USA, it's common to write dd/mm

I think you have this the wrong way around.

[Zeppa]

Thanks, corrected. 

[Shelley]

Its written like because it goes from big to small, thats why addresses are written like that too.

 

Makes sense really, if you do it the conventional way the postman has to start at the bottom of the address to start the sorting process and as the letter gets near it destination the top of the address is read.

 

The Chinese way is far more sensible in my opinion, Country first, then City, district, street, house no, apartment no. This also known as big-endian, there also medium and little-endian formats. (see the wikipedia link)

 

IIRC the USA is the only place in the world that write it mm/dd/yyyy, many people wonder what happened on the 9th of November 2001 when they hear people talking of 9/11.

 

This is interesting and confirms that the USA is alone in it choice of format.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

 

 

 

[Jim]

Just stick to the sexagenary cycle, then everyone's equally confused.

[mikelove]

YYYYMMDD order (padding day and month with zeroes, if necessary) is usually best in information processing contexts, since it ensures that a “dumb” string sort algorithm will nevertheless sort your dates correctly.

[edelweis]

19 hours ago, YMDnotYDM20203 said:

I saw 3 March 2020 written as 2020/3/3, I think that you guys write in the yy/dd/mm date format?

3 = 3 whether it means March or 3rd day of the month.

I don't know how you came to the conclusion that 2020/3/3 means YDM and not YMD...

 

[imron]

6 hours ago, mikelove said:

is usually best in information processing contexts

Yep.  Can confirm YYYYMMDD is the preferred format for programmers and IT people in general.

[Dawei3]

 

10 hours ago, Shelley said:

Its written like because it goes from big to small, thats why addresses are written like that too.

 

To add to Shelley's comment, bigger to smaller is the common sentence construction in Chinese.  When arranging a time to talk with someone, it's the day > time of day > time.  让我们周六早上八点钟聊天。(Let's talk on Saturday morning at 8。  Not "let's talk at 8 on Saturday morning" nor "let's talk at 8 in the morning on Saturday.) 

 

Others on the blog can mention if they know exceptions to this big/small approach.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Flickserve]

Who are " you guys"?? 

 

For myself, photo and video folders in my computer are grouped yyyymmdd

 

But anything else is ddmmyyyy.

 

 

[Shelley]

3 hours ago, Flickserve said:

For myself, photo and video folders in my computer are grouped yyyymmdd

So are mine, but I didn't choose this format. It seems to be a default format ....due to the fact I have a Huawei phone and it uses the Chinese big-endian format?

So any chinese device will do this as default? Discuss