on 2/20/2002 6:46 AM, Louis JOURDAN at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Not a real argument for SI nor ISO, but maybe a reason to adopt the
> "European" style for date and time ?
Why would anyone want to adopt the "European" style of date when the
international style of yyyy-mm-dd us so much more logical.
One way to get the Europeans and the Americans to get together on something
would be to get them BOTH to abandon their current illogical practice and
adopt the logical, standard, larger-to-smaller sequence. In it's complete
form, it would be
year - month - date, hour : min : sec
or
yyyy-mm-dd, hh:mm:ss
that is,
the year 2002, on February 25, at 19:45 and 15 seconds
(15 seconds after 9:45 pm), would represented by
2002-02-25, 19:45:15
For even finer precision (for eacmple, down to the hundredth of a second) we
can write
2002-02-25, 19:45:15.01
for example. The one thing I am uncertain about is the preferred punctuation
between the day and the hour. I've used a comma above, but I don't know what
is preferred. Can anybody advise me?
The advantage of the above format is that it has a logical sequence from
larger to smaller just like our numbering system. Also, for convenience, one
can simply omit sections off the left end if they are understood, or omit
sections off the right end if such precision is not needed. Thus, if we know
we are referring to this year, it would be sufficient just to write
02-25, 19:45:15
since the current year, 2002, would be understood.
Or, if the time is not needed to the nearest second, write it as
2002-02-25, 19:45
(If both, then write 02-25, 19:45 )
One can also drop off just the century and write the date as
02-02-25 (meaning 2002-02-25, usually but not always). But I wonder about
the wisdom of prepetuating the archaic system of writing years with only two
digits in light of the problems it caused when the calendar rolled over from
1999 to 2000
(the "Year 2K" problem). Why should we perpetuate a system that will cause
further difficulties when we roll over from 2099 to 2100, or worse yet, when
we roll over from 2999 to 3000
or from 9999 to 10 000 ? Let's think ahead, WAY ahead! I've already adopted
the practice of ALWAYS writing 4 digits for the year. This year is 2002, not
'02 as far as I'm concerned. It ain't hard!
Regards,
Bill Hooper
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Keep It Simple - Make It Metric!
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