Hi, Grim,
No slight on anyone's nationality was intended here. Sorry if you took
it that way.
Though living in Europe at the moment, I'm originally a Canuck.
Whenever we must interpret a date we've been sadly stuck with the
problem of having to guess whether its European standard format or
American standard format.
Therefore, I find the international date formatting standard (ISO 8601)
"yyyy-mm-dd" very pleasing. And because it begins with a four digit
year (and the other "standard" formats do not) there is no question
which format it is. Hence, there is no doubt over interpretation. And
in my humble personal opinion, ANY use of a date format beginning with a
four digit year and not following with month and day in that order must
be strongly eschewed for the danger to communication that it represents.)
In addition to the uniformity of interpretation that it provides, there
are other advantages as well. For example, when dates are formatted
like this they will sort in what is (almost always) the preferred order.
for some other advantages, do a search on "standard date format".
Many countries (including Canada and many European) have already adopted
this international standard. Sadly, for me at least, I see that
Canadian banks have recently adopted the American format, this in spite
of the clear superiority and official national adoption of the
international standard.
Cheers,
Randy