The US date format vs. The rest of the world

Ok, this is one of my pet peeves.

31 January 2007 should be written like this: 2007/01/31. It's what makes sense mathematically. Same as 103 is written as 1 in the "hundreds" a 0 in the "tens" and 3 in the "ones". 2007/01/31 has "2007" in the "years" or even "20" in the Millennium, "07" in the "years", "01" in the months, and "31" in the days.

01/31/2007 and 31/01/2007 both makes little sense. Because I've been reared with 31/01/2007, it's natural to me... also the same as the one that makes mathematically sense, just the other way around.

But this is what I can say for the US system. A computer checking the month while you are typing the days is much more comfortable if you've already typed the month. So trying to type 31/01/2006 when 05/02/2007 is the "default" is somewhat tricky if the validation is done real time. You first have to change the 02 to 01 (or another month with 31 days) before you can change it to 31.

Fortunately most date input boxes aren't programed to validate real time, but Powerbuilder is. And it sux... suxx. suxxx.

But my suggestion is everyone dates MMYY/mm/dd.