67 replies

1. Pete Gamache Mastodon 10 min later

   @zachleat when I first met Bitwalker who wrote the first datetime package in Elixir, my first words were “you sick bastard!”

   1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 21 min later

      @pete seems about right 😅

2. Brian LeRoux Bluesky 13 min later

   This one never got much attention but maybe useful reference. I think it's ok to write code if you're a programmer but I'm a weirdo that way.

   www.npmjs.com/package/spac...

   1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 25 min later

      nice! I hadn’t seen this one before either!

      I too think it’s okay to write code (and by hand even)

3. Florens Verschelde Mastodon 37 min later

   @zachleat > As an aside, this search has made me tempted to ask: do we need to keep Dual publishing packages? I prefer ESM over CJS but maybe just pick one?

   Some in the ecosystem think that we don't need to anymore, and should just ship ESM modules (see for instance https://e18e.dev/blog/migrating-the-ecosystem-to-esm.html), but it depends on what older Node.js versions you want to support.

   - Supported and updated versions of Node 20 and 22? You can ship ESM only.
   - Node 18 or earlier? Early (and at this point not secure) versions of Node 20 and 22? Then you need a dual package.

   1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 43 min later

      @fvsch for the record I have never dual published a package. When 11ty swapped to ESM we went all-in on ESM with Node 18+ and it has worked fine.

4. Gryphon Bluesky 59 min later

   Intl gets me most of the way there these days

   1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 1 hr later

      well wait — I don’t see any date parsing things in those APIs — only formatting/display

      1. Gryphon Bluesky 9 hr later

         No sorry I didn't mean to suggest I was using it for parsing. I meant for formatting. For parsing I try to avoid needing anything other than Date's quirky implementation (not always an option, I know). Kinda hoping Temporal will solve this (do you know if it will?)

         1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 9 hr later

            I do know the answer to this and wrote a blog post about it linked above 😅

            1. Gryphon Bluesky 9 hr later

               🤦‍♂️ I only skimmed

               1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 9 hr later

                  we’ve all been there 😅

5. Jim Nielsen Mastodon 2 hr later

   @zachleat i'm pretty sure this is how it works, so good on you

   1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 2 hr later

      @jimniels Geordi is one of my favorite fictional engineers so I take this as very high praise thank you

6. Jon Mastodon 2 hr later

   @zachleat now do 11ty/markdown and 11ty/templating too! Do all the things Zach!

   1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 2 hr later

      @scrwd JON this definitely feels more 😈 than 👼

      😅

7. dwkns.bsky.social Bluesky 3 hr later

   "As an aside, this search has made me tempted to ask: do we need to keep Dual publishing packages? I prefer ESM over CJS but maybe just pick one?"

   Could this mean you'll drop support for CJS config in Eleventy v4? Would mean we wouldn't have to Dual publish plugins.

   1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 4 hr later

      naw, there’s no reason to drop CJS config/data/template file support in Eleventy. It’s written in ESM but works with CJS (in Node 18 too)

      None of the official Eleventy plugins are dual published either, fwiw — if they need to support core < 3, they’ll stay as CJS. If core >=3, they can be ESM-only

      1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 4 hr later

         to be clear, CJS configs can import ESM plugins with `await import`

8. Max Duval Bluesky 5 hr later

   Nice! Seeing as smol size is a prime feature of this lib, are you open to contributions that reduce the number of minified bytes at the expense of some readability?

   1. Max Duval Bluesky 5 hr later

      And how important is it that errors are specific, for example regarding fractional hours & minutes? I can see the test don’t currently capture that distinction.

      1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 5 hr later

         I would say not very open to readability tradeoffs but also you’re right — the error messaging here is not specific: just invalid or valid

         1. Max Duval Bluesky 5 hr later

            Ok, I’ll raise a PR or two, but feel free to reject ‘em!

            1. Max Duval Bluesky 8 hr later

               I’ve got github.com/11ty/parse-d... and github.com/11ty/parse-d... – curious to see if you find them helpful :)

               Of course all the tests still pass!

               1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 8 hr later

                  Thanks! They look good on first glance!

9. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 6 hr later

   eww, no thank you

   1. Jan Lehnardt Mastodon 6 hr later

      @zachleat 🪦

   2. Michael Arestad Mastodon 6 hr later

      @zachleat plus what tho

      1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 6 hr later

         @michael depends if you like C, C#,or C++

   3. Khalid ⚡ Mastodon 6 hr later

      @zachleat thought leader

      1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 6 hr later

         @khalidabuhakmeh I am under vicious attack by you

         1. Slab Bulkhead Mastodon 6 hr later

            @zachleat @khalidabuhakmeh comes with an honorary turtleneck does this help

            1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 6 hr later

               @slab_bulkhead @khalidabuhakmeh turtleneck versus the hareneck aka neckbeard

               1. Khalid ⚡ Mastodon 7 hr later

                  @zachleat @slab_bulkhead I'm not sure how to think. Could you please tell me?

                  1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 7 hr later

                     @khalidabuhakmeh @slab_bulkhead when in doubt just do what Meta does

                     1. Khalid ⚡ Mastodon 7 hr later

                        @zachleat @slab_bulkhead Cool. I've joined a Brazilian JuJitsu club, grown a fro, and having a midlife crisis as we speak. Next stop, The Joe Rogan Experience!

                        1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 7 hr later

                           @khalidabuhakmeh @slab_bulkhead see you in the metaverse

                           1. Khalid ⚡ Mastodon 7 hr later

                              @zachleat @slab_bulkhead at least the top half of me. 😅

   4. Jason Garber Mastodon 7 hr later

      @zachleat oh no

   5. Tyler Sticka Mastodon 1 day later

      @zachleat You’re already writing a date parser and now it’s on HN, talk about kicking someone when they’re down

      1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 3 days later

         @tylersticka woke up this morning with a patagonia fleece vest on, somehow

10. Private reply Bluesky 8 hr later
    1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 8 hr later

       only general zod can judge me

11. Paul L Mastodon 9 hr later

    @zachleat a few years ago I had to spend 3 months of development because #safari’s date parsing had changed between versions of #ios making our server emitted dates break…

    This was the perfect illustration why flawed standards such as iso8601 are a problem. And this the reason why date parsing is a nightmare…

    Just be strict. Period.
    And accept that this is politically incorrect.

    1. Asbjørn Ulsberg Mastodon 5 days later

       @polx @zachleat Be strict for sure! This is precisely why we chose RFC 3339 over ISO 8601 for Atom (RFC 4287).

12. Ryan Trimble Bluesky 10 hr later

    ok yeah, but what is your quiz score:
    jsdate.wtf

    1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 2 days later

       I don’t know her!!

13. Cory Dransfeldt Mastodon 1 day later

    @zachleat You’ll be taking VC investments and revolutionizing date parsing, calendars and string display in no time.

    1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 3 days later

       @cory hear me out what if we used AI to parse dates so that it was wrong at an even higher percentage BUT at the cost of a lot more electricity

       1. Khalid ⚡ Mastodon 3 days later

          @zachleat @cory Welcome to hell. https://www.timeanddate.com/time/time-zones-interesting.html

          1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 3 days later

             @khalidabuhakmeh @cory bless those folks in :45 time zones 😅

             1. Khalid ⚡ Mastodon 3 days later

                @zachleat @cory Honestly, it must be bliss. No one can probably figure out how to schedule a meeting with you. You can enjoy your life with 90% less BS.

                1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 3 days later

                   @khalidabuhakmeh @cory just gotta make sure it’s on the 45 minutes late side and not 45 minutes early 😅

          2. Daniel J. Summers ~ East TN, USA Mastodon 3 days later

             @khalidabuhakmeh @zachleat @cory Obilgatory Gaffigan https://youtu.be/ehZePNP_w4I?si=RYYv5TGaOuXRD5Z2&t=326
             1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 3 days later

                @daniel @cory @khalidabuhakmeh WE’LL DO HALF HOUR

             2. Tracking Token Disrespector Mastodon 3 days later

                🤖 Tracking strings detected and removed!
                
                🔗 Clean URL(s):
                https://youtu.be/ehZePNP_w4I?t=326
                
                ❌ Removed parts:
                si=RYYv5TGaOuXRD5Z2&
       2. Cory Dransfeldt Mastodon 3 days later

          @zachleat I mean yes, but then think of the opportunities when we install our date parser on the infrastructure underpinning the AI.

14. Anthony Cregan Bluesky 2 days later

    Can we get a prequel? Might i suggest "Several reasons why I think it would be a good idea to write a Date Parsing Library"

15. Mike Hostetler Mastodon 2 days later

    @zachleat thoughts and prayers

    1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 3 days later

       @mikehoss it isn’t often you get to subscribe to a future car crash, mike

16. Private reply Bluesky 3 days later
    1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 3 days later

       with Eleventy v4, yeah

       1. Zach Leatherman Bluesky 3 days later

          we’ll make it part of the upgrade plugin and provide guidance about how to keep using luxon, for the record!

17. claas Mastodon 3 days later

    @zachleat cool article! I wonder if you have also looked at how much a Temporal API polyfill might weigh in. I wonder if it is a solid option to use that and just remove it when the promised day finally comes 😄

    1. claas Mastodon 3 days later

       @zachleat nvm you did

       1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 4 days later

          @claasdev yeah, I am starting to think it might be worth a follow-up article focused on answering that question specifically!

18. Anders Gustafson Bluesky 9 days later

    I totally agree that ambiguity and too many formats are some of the hardest problems with date parsing solutions.

    Thanks for trying to solve the (impossible?) task to create a Date Parsing Library.