When I'm traveling, I often like to sample beer that's unavailable here in beer-wasteland-Quebec (local microbreweries not withstanding).
For some reason, I often get asked for ID... especially in near-airport bars and restaurants. I noticed that in Orlando, last year, everyone in every group was carded each time anyone ordered any sort of alcohol. I guess they have a low-tolerance for under age drinking, there, or perhaps their waiters are just well-trained to ask everyone for ID.
Anyway, the first piece of ID I usually have on-hand is my Quebec driver's license. Quebec is messed up in many ways, but one that they're particularly oblivious about is that our driver's licenses don't explicitly show the holder's birth date. It's abstracted into the license number, and isn't obvious to anyone who's never seen one before.
(note: yes, there is a PHP (or at least code) related component to this piece, if you feel like reading on. It has to do with idiotic short date formats.)
I get a kick out of handing my driver's license to bouncers/bartenders/waitresses and watching their faces as they try to find the birth date. It must be there... right?
My license has a number similar to the following, at the top (changed in case there's any "private" information in there, but the format is the same): C6401-090280-01.
Now that I've pointed it out, you can probably pick out my birth date: September 2nd, 1980. Or perhaps it's February 9th, 1980... and I'm only sure about the year because there's no month for "80". The practice of displaying an abstracted birth date on a piece of identification that is normally used much more often as... identification... than as an actual license to drive, but I digress.
Let's get get to the real issue: ambiguous date formats. Can we stop this, please? I realize that each country is different, but it's really annoying. Take my example above: you have no idea which month I was born in.
On top of that, why should the YEAR–read: the most significant digits–ever be last? Today's date should be denoted 2007.09.27. Choose your own punctuation for all I care, but please, PLEASE, use a little bit of sense, here.
Don't even get me started on 24h date formatting.
Rant over. Sorry about that.
Anyway, IF you must represent dates in a messed up format like 090507 (which what?), then at LEAST let your users choose their own format.
S (changing the world one reader at a time.... (-; )
It's really hit or miss in the states. Mostly depends on the local police department. If they get bored and start running stings, then the bars/stores start checking more. I've gone months without getting carded, then the other night the store manager wouldn't sell me TripleSec because he didn't like my Arizona license. Probably has to do with the fact that it doesn't expire until I'm 65, but still... :-)
My wife and I were in Vermont last year. She tried to buy a bottle of wine at a local store, and the cashier was really snotty about her not being local and having a local driver's license. She snatched the bottle away and stated very rudely that she couldn't sell the bottle without a passport.
This was in Stowe: aka tourist-zone.
I did have my passport at the hotel, but instead we went to a different store, down the road, which had a better selection, and much friendlier staff, and they didn't even card us.
S
[B]On top of that, why should the YEAR–read: the most significant digits–ever be last? Today's date should be denoted 2007.09.27. Choose your own punctuation for all I care, but please, PLEASE, use a little bit of sense, here.[/B]
I agree 100% with that point, thats one thing I have never understood - the logic behind US formatted dates. It makes more sense to me to run things in in a (most to least/least to most) significant order - MM-DD-YYYY just throws that order out the window.
On the SQL/code side I always pass dates to SQL in YYYY-MM-DD, then there is no confusion. I have lost count the number of times working on software projects where database installs and their date formatting/regional settings would differ between production and development and we would get into all sorts of bother. Going with YYYY-MM-DD tells the DB exactly what you wanted..
I guess that's why there is an ISO format for dates ;-)
goYearMonthDay.com anyone? :)
ISO8601 specifies 2007-10-04 (with - and not .) - for the rest, I agree of course :-)