I am going through Kalen Delaney and Itzik Ben-Gan’s Inside Sql Server 2005 books. I am surprised and happy to learn that you can always represents date/time value in the format of [YY]YYMMDD[ HH:MI[:SS][.MMM]] in Sql Server, with things inside the square bracket being optional. In fact, that is a recommended practice because you will always get intended results regardless of Windows locale settings, SET LANGUAGE, and SET DATEFORMAT options.

This representation is actually consistent with the convention used in China, so it feels pretty natural to me. In China, when people talk about dates, it is almost always written in the order of year, month, date, and goes more granular as needed such as hour, minutes, seconds, etc.

The same can be said about address. For example “100 Main Street, Oak Park, Illinois, USA” is the proper order of writing address. The same address addressed in Chinese would be “USA, Illinois, Oak Park, 100 Main Street”

I wouldn’t be surprised if Japan, Korea, and other Asian countries use the same convention as China on this. I am not sure, though.