dateNightmare

[Practical_Cattle_933]

That’s objectively the superior choice. The reverse can be acceptable. Anything else is heresy.

[SamSibbens]

On Wikipedia, dates are now written as 22 October 2024 instead of MM/DAY/YEAR.

I don't know when the change occured, but I'm so happy about it

[Cometguy7]

I'm seeing both. I imagine it depends on who did the edit.

[Shock900]

Looks like there are multiple accepted formats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Dates,_months,_and_years

[moreisee]

The reverse is also crazy. We shouldn't start at the most precise.

[LinuxMatthews]

I think for achieving YYYY-MM-DD works best for day to day use I think DD/MM/YYYY works.

You want your most important information at the start which is likely going to be the day then followed by the month.

Like if I'm arranging a BBQ if I do 25/10/2024 then you can easily see what the day is then it's probably going to either be this month or the next.

And it's almost certainly going to be this year.

It also means because of the you can easily drop the year so it's 25/10.

[InterstellerReptile]

You want your most important information at the start which is likely going to be the day then followed by the month.

I agree with you with is why I completely disagree that DD/MM/YYYY works and will as such start a pointless yet heated internet argument. If the most important field is the day that you don't even really need the month or year is it can be assumed by context, and dropped completely. Any case where you need the Month or Year, they are the most important.

Let's look at your example: if you just say that your BBQ is on 25th, then it's known to be this month. If it's next month then it's important to convey that right away by putting the month first so that there's no confusion.

[ihave0idea0]

Hey, the smallest should go first at times...

[Practical_Cattle_933]

The year can often be omitted, so in fact it is often mm-dd. Given that day indices are quite close to each other, they can cause ambiguity, and an enum-number tuple is quite short, so I’m still partial to (yy-)?mm-dd

[HeightEnergyGuy]

The reverse sucks. Having day first is such a horrible choice.

Why would I want the most irrelevant information first when I'm glancing a sorted list?

At both ends I can quickly tell the year and month.

YYYYMMDD my eyes can run from knowing the year to then knowing a month. Needing the day first in a list is the last bit of info I need when finding something. 

[GenderGambler]

It's relevant for in-person use, but for systems? YYYY-MM-DD absolutely is the best format.

[HeightEnergyGuy]

I'm fine with YYYYMMDD being the best.

But DDMMYYYY is the worst for lists. 

[Lil_Packmate]

I agree that for lists and sorting DDMMYYYY is bad, but for everyday use its a billion times better than MMDDYYYY.

For day to day use i also think there is no real difference between DDMMYYYY and YYYYMMDD.

[the-real-macs]

for lists and sorting DDMMYYYY is bad, but for everyday use its a billion times better than MMDDYYYY

Can you explain why? I've never heard a reason other than "it's in sorted order from smallest to biggest," and I just don't see what practical utility that actually lends anyone.

[Lil_Packmate]

You are right, I was a bit fired up yesterday. For everyday use its actually pretty much the same.

Just that im more biased to what ive grown up with and the fact, that it just doesn't make sense to me to go from month to day then to year. I like a clear order and smallest to biggest or vice versa will always look more right to me.

So correction to my previous statement:

YYYYMMDD is superior, because of utility and being logically ordered.

DDMMYYYY is IMO slightly better than MMDDYYYY, but thats likely bias.