The Lemon Fool

servodude wrote:

kiloran wrote:When working at my employer to define a new global software system, we decided on ddmmmyy (27Jan24) as the date format to be displayed on screens and printouts. Worked globally (americas, europe, asia) with no confusion, and became the standard in spreadsheets etc. Excel interprets it as a date, it's sortable in a spreadsheet. I've used it ever since in everything I do

--kiloran

True... it works
But the one true correct answer is YYYYMMDD(HHmmSS)
Cos it works in a sort even if all you have is alphanumeric parsing

Yes, that works on a technical level. but the main interface with users was a 24x80 terminal screen rather than a spreadsheet. Users from all countries felt that yyyymmdd failed the user-friendliness test, when looking at a date they would have to think what it really meant, and with a lot of dates on the screens, they felt ddmmmyy was far more intuitive. 28JAN24 was much more intuitive and instantly recognisable than 20240128, even for those whose native language was not english. The screen layout was very much led by users.

--kiloran
edit.... and 28JAN24 also used less screen space than 20240128, we wanted to cram as much useful info on each screen as possible

servodude wrote:

kiloran wrote:When working at my employer to define a new global software system, we decided on ddmmmyy (27Jan24) as the date format to be displayed on screens and printouts. Worked globally (americas, europe, asia) with no confusion, and became the standard in spreadsheets etc. Excel interprets it as a date, it's sortable in a spreadsheet. I've used it ever since in everything I do

--kiloran

True... it works
But the one true correct answer is YYYYMMDD(HHmmSS)
Cos it works in a sort even if all you have is alphanumeric parsing

Not that it has much to do with the subject, but in the end you are doing this for users, not for the benefit of programmers, or what somebody has deemed as 'correct'.

Dod

kiloran wrote:

servodude wrote:
True... it works
But the one true correct answer is YYYYMMDD(HHmmSS)
Cos it works in a sort even if all you have is alphanumeric parsing

Yes, that works on a technical level. but the main interface with users was a 24x80 terminal screen rather than a spreadsheet. Users from all countries felt that yyyymmdd failed the user-friendliness test, when looking at a date they would have to think what it really meant, and with a lot of dates on the screens, they felt ddmmmyy was far more intuitive. 28JAN24 was much more intuitive and instantly recognisable than 20240128, even for those whose native language was not english. The screen layout was very much led by users.

--kiloran
edit.... and 28JAN24 also used less screen space than 20240128, we wanted to cram as much useful info on each screen as possible

Well done for not dropping off the century
I picked up that date habit writing dBase (FoxPro/Recital) stuff for the chief execs of the Scottish education department as a teenager at uni. It stuck - firstly because it makes sense (and I take your point about screen space, I did A LOT of terminal forms) and also as it "kind of always" worked between all the loosely related database formats without having to translate it (you just enforced numeric input).
Wasn't pretty but it was cheap and pragmatic

Dod101 wrote:

servodude wrote:
True... it works
But the one true correct answer is YYYYMMDD(HHmmSS)
Cos it works in a sort even if all you have is alphanumeric parsing

Not that it has much to do with the subject, but in the end you are doing this for users, not for the benefit of programmers, or what somebody has deemed as 'correct'.

Dod

Wasn't Kiloran's "user" someone trying to define a new global system?
Or perhaps you missed the winkie...

But as an aside the REAL fail would be forcing a user to view stuff based on your internal encoding

Dod101 wrote:

servodude wrote:
True... it works
But the one true correct answer is YYYYMMDD(HHmmSS)
Cos it works in a sort even if all you have is alphanumeric parsing

Not that it has much to do with the subject, but in the end you are doing this for users, not for the benefit of programmers, or what somebody has deemed as 'correct'.

Dod

Yes, and No. Today's IT systems ought be built as much for their users as for those supporting & maintaining them. You'd be surprised how details like date formats (and sorting of) matter. YYYYMMDD is the "no brainer" choice.

What a difference a few weeks or months makes - although the week is not quite over, my UK/Gold heavy portfolio has positively soared since the last update on this thread, and even slightly more since the dark(er) (grey?) days of Q3 2023.

Been thinking that it's bound to retreat at some point, but it's just continued to march consistently higher for months... just goes to show the value of simply doing nothing and resisting the urge to tinker.

Well things have been on a tear recently. I was wondering if sell in May would come into play.

I haven't checked yet, tomorrow's job, but it might be a slightly down week this week after all the rises.

I think things have been up and down over 7% since the start of the year. Still if things do fall it might help the buying process.

I'm currently at an all time high. This last week has seen me well ahead of the market, helped by reaction to some of the results, notably BT.A and LLOY.

Whatever has held the FTSE100 back, I obviously don't have enough of it.

TJH

Well "tomorrow's" job was done this morning and was another up week but only just. Does this mean the rises are about to stall or take a breather.

I do know that I'm due a raft of dividends so should taper any falls if it happens next week.

The markets don't rise in a straight line and generally the falls tend to be short and sharp. Thinking of selling a fund and converting it to an IT that pays a dividend. Might be the nearest I get to tweaking the PF. Twas a fund I was forced into that doesn't do much for me but has risen in this rally.

tjh290633 wrote:I'm currently at an all time high. This last week has seen me well ahead of the market, helped by reaction to some of the results, notably BT.A and LLOY.

Whatever has held the FTSE100 back, I obviously don't have enough of it.

TJH

Not sure what you mean? The FTSE 100 is at an all time high too. I find threads like this curious. As an investor you need to treat rises and falls with equanimity. The time to get really excited is when prices are falling, not rising and starting to look fully valued.

Normally I'd be reinvesting dividends in our ISA accounts but I'm restricting new transactions simply to rebuy existing shareholdings from our taxed " General Investment Account". This frees up funds from sold shares in the GIA with which I'm buying shorted dated Gilts with in anticipation of a house move.

I hadn't updated my spreadsheets for a good few weeks. I knew shareprices were increasing so there was little of interest to "tempt me" but I must admit to not being my usual self regarding keeping a weather eye out for possible buys/top ups.

simoan wrote:

tjh290633 wrote:I'm currently at an all time high. This last week has seen me well ahead of the market, helped by reaction to some of the results, notably BT.A and LLOY.

Whatever has held the FTSE100 back, I obviously don't have enough of it.

TJH

Not sure what you mean? The FTSE 100 is at an all time high too. I find threads like this curious. As an investor you need to treat rises and falls with equanimity. The time to get really excited is when prices are falling, not rising and starting to look fully valued.

What I meant was that I was up over 1% on the week, while UKX fell slightly. That is a response to the title of the thread. After over 50 years of investing I am well aware that the markets go up and down. I am also aware that shares whose prices have fallen,, compared to the market, offer the opportunity to buy low.

TJH

It's not wrong to be happy that your portfolio value has increased, even if you are still in accumulation mode - as some are all to keen to remind us capital growth is an important component of total return, and more shareholder capital through higher stock price gives the underlying business more choices in how to access capital most efficiently.

Personally I am at the point now where a 1% move in the portfolio is more than I add to it each month, so capital preservation is more important to me than than the opportunity to buy the dip. If you are already living off your portfolio exclusively then there are no advantages to falling stock prices, and only risk.