While JavaScript is parsing it as octal, this will cause a whole raft of errors if you are making your users enter dates.
User enters 08 for August, even returning NaN would be a mistake.
User enters 08 for August, even returning NaN would be a mistake.
parseInt('08', 10) // => 8
This tells it explicitly that this is a base-10 number, rather than letting it guess at the base. You can also use this to decode things in base n, n <= 36.