title: PostgreSQL - Ordering by a converted string
body: <p>Brand new to PostgreSQL, but very familiar with T-SQL.  I need to write two very simple queries that return the oldest and newest dates from a date_column within a table.  The date_column is in TEXT format "mm/dd/yyyy" (it just <em>is</em>).  I am attempting to do this in PostgreSQL using my prior knowledge from T-SQL.  For the newest date, this query correctly gives me the answer:</p>
  
  <pre><code>select date_column
  from my_table
  order by date(date_column) desc limit 1;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, modifying the query by either changing "desc" to "asc" or removing the qualifier altogether gives me the same answer as the newest date.</p>
  
  <p>What is going on here?  I feel like even though I got the correct answer for the newest date, the syntax is the incorrect approach.  The date_column has many different values so it's not a case of me overlooking that.  I saw a very old (~2010) post using substrings to parse the date and the optimist in me believes Postgre <em>has</em> to have evolved since then :)  </p>
  
  <p>Cheers for any help in advance.</p>