This is a great recommendation but if you're trying to be interoperable with other languages it's just not possible.
If you're in control of the output format though, I would fully agree.
The original article is about generating date strings, and I would give it more credence if it mentioned the RFC 3339 profile. (edit: I just noticed you're probably the author; please excuse my abrupt tone)
It's true, I should have mentioned RFC3339 in the article. I will make some amendments to it later today.