Ideally, every application built would be designed with correct date handling techniques. In practice, applications are often built using ad hoc date formatting to match a corporate culture, the default format on a company’s server, or the favorite format of the lead developer. Also, many applications are not locale aware or were not designed to be deployed in an environment where locale issues were not considered important. Because of this it is extremely important to know the date formats in use for input and output when building applications that will integrate with other systems or databases and to handle these formats explicitly.