Well @JimmyLong I moved this to SuperUser and they immediately closed it as irrelevant. So I've tried on three separate sites. To be honest, the first one seemed the most relevant (softwarerecs.stackexchange.com) since it's software that I'm trying to evaluate, but they closed it there too. Can you answer it here at least? — mwarren 46 secs ago

Your profile states you're a senior software engineer with 6+ years of experience. Leaving aside the dubious nature of calling yourself senior with that level of experience, how do you call yourself senior when you can't comprehend these questions or, worse, not even to appear to put any effort into it before asking others? I may be wrong, you may have put quite a bit of effort in but, in that case, you really should document what you've done to date. As it stands, this looks like a "do my homework for me" type of question. — paxdiablo 6 secs ago

A very common reasoning error, particularly among programmers with less than two years of experience, is thinking that the actual real-world computer they are working with will behave like a simple, idealized theoretical model of a computer. Real-world computers running modern operating systems with modern CPUs are fiendishly complex beasts. — David Schwartz 29 secs ago

By the way, I have seen this pattern being quite common among some programmers and languages. At work, we are doing C++ and our coding convention did encourage this until we switched to a plugin that had parameter-hints as feature (Resharper). But the Java IDEs have this feature for free, built-in already. So no need. — Zabuza 1 min ago

+1 We, as programmers, sometimes forget that ISO 8601 standart might have more than one formats. And using .Remove(18,1) as like a magical number, as you mentioned, programmers don't like this kind string manipulations but in this case looks like we don't have much option (: — Soner Gönül 41 secs ago

@BasilBourque The question is concrete, and about programming, and has good and specific answers. It belongs here. The question does not pertain to "software development methods and process questions", which is the blurb for softwareengineering.stackexchange.com. — thebjorn 29 secs ago

I am sorry, but I don't think that this is the right place to ask for software recommendations. There is dedicated site softwarerecs.stackexchange.com — Steve 27 secs ago

Not to mention <strong> = <b> etc. I think when a new language is being developed the creators what to cast a wide net. Thereby allowing for programmers from a divers background to comprehend the new language. — Nelles 27 secs ago

I wouldn't call this solution simple to understand or implement for beginner programmers, particularly compared to the most optimal solution which is two very simple boolean checks that one only needs to know the basics of the language to understand. This is not a situation where there is a trade-off between simplicity and performance, but rather between performance and subjective elegance, which oftentimes I find is a trap that novice developers fall into that results in their programs being convoluted and poorly performant. — Abion47 40 secs ago

@Ry- Thank you, yes the code skeletons are indeed, different. This is the correct answer. I still believe it is incredibly misleading for HackerRank to instruct the solver to "print" when instructed to write a function. This insinuates that one should print from the function. Would everyone agree? Also, I'm not sure why this has a down vote. HackerRank's behavior and idiosyncrasies are directly relevant to all programmers across every major high level language. — user10693340 59 secs ago

Your answer is not only read by OP but also by other fellow programmers who might find this issue interesting. When you write an answer here, assume you are answering to a general audience and be brief. — coder3101 31 secs ago

Thanks Sergey!! Your code creates the right answer. As I said to Andrej, I will measure the times of the solutions. I will give the accepted answer to the fastest one, as I believe this question will be useful for several data-manipulation programmers. I am honored that you really dig into this one. — xiaxio 54 secs ago

Welcome to Stack Overflow. SO is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. The goal is that you add some code of your own to your question to show at least the research effort you made to solve this yourself. — Cyrus 20 secs ago

Welcome to SO. SO is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. The goal is that you provide some code of your own to your question to show at least the research effort you made to solve this yourself. — Twonky 44 secs ago

This site’s goal is to help people become better programmers, not to help someone avoid becoming a better programmer by doing their entire assignment for them. — VGR 46 secs ago

Here is some discussion on how the factory pattern that you have implemented satisfies the open/closed principle: softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/302780/… — CampbellMG 28 secs ago