this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
197 points (92.3% liked)

Showerthoughts

29568 readers
962 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

Rules

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Amazon is running a Prime Day sale on July 16 and 17. Setting aside the fact that this is two separate days, neither 716 nor 717 are prime numbers. They should've done 7/19 instead.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Yeah, but you have to admit mm/dd/yyyy is way more stupid. Small -> big makes more sense than middle -> small -> big

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

For every day purposes, absolutely. For programming? Nope, the only right answer is big->small.

Honestly, the alternative to every day use is to stop using numbers for the month

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The problem with three letter month codes is language to language difference. Numbers are more universal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Actually, I disagree that DD/MM/YYYY even qualifies as being small to big.

If you actually treat it as a counter from 01/01/2024 onward, note that the first digit that moves is actually the second digit in the 8-digit representation. In terms of significance, the most significant digit is the 5th one in the string, then counting down the significance it's 6th, then 7th, then 8th, then jumps back to the 3rd, then the 4th, then the 1st, then the 2nd.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

A day is less than a month, is less than a year

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

12 is smaller than 31 is smaller than ∞, though.

Really, we can all come up with vastly reasonable reasons the date system we prefer makes the most sense... but in reality it's all very subjective. Not only will different methods be appropriate for different situations... but some people just prefer their own way.

It's all really moot, though. We should have been using stardates for the last 55 years anyways.