Editing 2562: Formatting Meeting

{{comic
| number    = 2562
| date      = December 31, 2021
| title     = Formatting Meeting
| image     = formatting_meeting.png
| titletext = Neither group uses iso 8601 because the big-endian enthusiasts were all at the meeting 20 years ago.
}}

==Explanation==
In the {{w|United States}}, it's common to write {{w|Calendar dates|dates}} numerically in the {{w|Calendar date#Date format|format}} ''{{w|Month|month}}/{{w|Day|day}}/{{w|Year|year}}'' -- 2/3/22 means February 3, 2022 (the century is often omitted when it's obvious that the date is around the current time). In Europe, the {{w|Calendar date#Gregorian, day–month–year (DMY)|usual order}} is ''day/month/year'' - so 2/3/22 is 2nd March, 2022.

"{{w|Internationalization and localization|Localization}}" is the technique used in software to make it accept input and display output in the formats most natural to users in their locations. For example, in the United States numbers use commas "," to separate thousands and a {{w|Decimal separator#Countries using decimal point|decimal point}} "." to separate the decimal values, while in large areas of the EU {{w|Decimal separator#Countries using decimal comma|it is the reverse}}.  And the textual output will be translated to the local language. Naturally, this also includes displaying dates in the local format, as described above. Localization may also include the adoption of the tax law to the location, for instance when adopting tax software made for the US to the UK. 

The joke in this {{w|Comics|comic}} is that two dates are shown, on the same {{w|Display device|display}}, relating to meetings regarding localization. The date of the meeting of the US team is localized in the US format while the EU team's meeting is localized in the European format, and these two dates (about a month apart) happen to be formatted the same (there are 64 such pairings of dates, as long as the day of the month of one is between 1 and 12 and not equal to the presumed month of the other). [[Cueball]] needs to explain that the European meeting will be a month later than the US meeting to avoid any confusion due to the ambiguity. Which is {{w|Irony|ironic}}, since the aim of localization is to reduce such {{w|Confusion|confusion}}.

A further interpretation, which extends also into the title text, is that these groups may have been supposed to meet on the same day. But even the committee that was supposed to fix these problems messed this up. Cueball may be 'explaining' the staggered approach to cover up that the two groups are already reading the date(s) for the meeting quite differently.

{{w|ISO-8601}} (that is, standard number 8601 as promulgated by the {{w|International Organization for Standardization}} since 1988) specifies a date format of YYYY-MM-DD (e.g., 2021-12-31), which results in dates being listed in chronological order when sorted stringwise. The ISO format is called "{{w|big-endian}}", which refers to the fact that the most significant unit in the date (the year) comes first. The European format is instead "{{w|little-endian}}", as the front-end value represents the finest possible distinction the date can convey - the particular day. The American format is "{{w|middle-endian}}", or occasionally "mixed-endian", since the value given first is the one which is neither the one with greatest significance nor the most precise.

In the above, the 'value groups' are not usually internally checked for '{{w|Endianness|endianness}}', but regular numerals are also usually written with the largest place values on the left – for example, the first 2 in {{w|2021}} is the thousands place – though whether this convention is big-endian or little-endian depends on whether the writing system of such numbers is in the context of left-to-right or right-to-left text. The concept of endianness is most often used in reference to the storage order, whether of indivisible binary bits or of values built up of successive value groups. Pairs of hexadecimal values are individually usually represented in big-endian 'numeric' order, where bitwise distinctions are not necessary, but it is useful to know if a system stores a multibyte value in big-endan or little-endian packing, i.e., whether the value 0x01 0x02 (values 1 and 2, on their own) is treated as a value of 258 (0x01*256 + 0x02*1) or 513 (0x01*1 + 0x02*256). (The term was taken in inspiration from a [https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Spring_2003/ling538/Lecnotes/ADfn1.htm Jonathan Swift story] about a war over which end of a boiled egg one should cut into, a useful metaphor for many other situations where diametrically opposed self-justifications for one ''or'' another practice may lead to standing by vague principles rather than agreeing upon a unifying resolution.) This standard was also mentioned in [[1179: ISO 8601]] and used in [[1340: Unique Date]].

The joke in the title text is that it appears some people attempted to interpret the improperly formatted date as if it were expressed in the more ISO-8601 style of format of "Y/M/D". They read the date as ''20''02, March 22, so they already went to their meeting almost 20 years ago. Unless the announcement of the meetings was made 2 decades in advance, there's a {{w|Paradox|paradox}} that these participants would have taken the date from an announcement in the far future. However, a strict interpretation of the date would make this incorrect: ISO-8601 format specifies four-digit years (which also avoids having to assume the century), two-digit months, and two-digit days. Therefore "2/3/22” ''can by specification not'' be an ISO-8601 date, as "2" can only be rendered as "0002", and "3" must be "03". Even if the leading {{w|0|zeroes}} were omitted in violation of ISO-8601, the year would become {{w|AD 2|Year 2}}, not Year 2002. Since the standard always uses a 4 digit 'YYYY' format in the first field, and no common formatting uses YYYY-DD-MM, any date written in ISO-8601 is easily recognized and (comparatively) {{w|Ambiguity|unambiguously}} interpretable as YYYY-MM-DD. Dates written as if Y-M-DD or other distortions should be considered formatted improperly, and unwisely.

==Transcript==
:[A screen is shown which displays five rows of text, the top three above a dividing line. To the right of the screen the upper part of Cueball is visible as he delivers a message concerning the text on the screen:] 
:Localization working group
:Upcoming meetings
:-----------------
:US Team: 2/3/22
:EU Team: 2/3/22

:Cueball: And the European formatting and localization team will meet a month later...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Calendar]]