dd-mm-yyyy

Monday, 7 October 2002
  • Today won't do, can we move the appointment to tomorrow?

    School for fools

    By Formalny Theatre, St. Petersburg,
    directed by Andrei Moguchi
    balto...
    HJ: Magnificent performance,
    simply worldclass!
  • Shall we go to the theater tonight or tomorrow afternoon?
  • Will you give the PHP course next Tuesday?
  • Are you flying out next week Saturday or the Monday after?
Listen to two people making an appointment and you will hear how the date agreed is expressed in relation to today.

I don't know about you, but I

  • have a good idea which day of the week it is today,
  • but will have to look at the calender for the date.

Dates are troublesome.

Computers systems often ask for dates, in obscure formats open to interpretation, such as 07-10-02. And then complains about a missing zero or a mistyped hyphen. But which day of the week it is today seems an unknown concept.

Why can't computers cope with human concepts such as:

  • today
  • tomorrow
  • next Tuesday
  • next week Saturday?
During this coming week I will be reflecting on a better way to enter dates. You will see the result next Monday.

Till next week,
Nut