Comment by geocar

I think you have a totally skewed idea about what is going on.

Most protocols are used by exactly two parties; I meet someone who wants to have their computer talk to mine and so we have to agree on a protocol for doing so.

When we agree to use XML, they use that exact date format because I just ask for it. If someone wanted me to produce some weird timestamp-format, I'd ask for whatever xslt they want to include in the payload.

When we agree to use JSON, schema says integers, email say "unix time", integration testing we discover it's "whatever Date.now() says" and a few months later I discover their computer doesn't know the difference between UTC and GMT.

Also: I like APL.