[Dev] Re: Time zones in Chandler

[Anthony Baxter]

You really, really, really don't want to be storing timestamps as
anything other than UTC (GMT). Timezones are a presentation thing.
On the other hand, you probably want to store Calendar entries
only as "Local Time", without any timezone information at all.
Otherwise if I set up a calendar with events during a trip overseas,
then take my laptop with me, when I bring up the laptop and adjust
it's timezone, I don't want all of my Calendar entries to jump
forward or backwards N hours. On the gripping hand, if I do move
timezones, I want to be able to see that an email I received 3 days
and 4 hours ago is still 3 hours and four days ago. And in case the
timezone moving is considered too strange a use case, remember that
most people change timezones at least twice a year - when daylight
savings kicks in and out. And finally, if I receive a piece of
email from someone around the other side of the world, I want to be
able to see that they sent it at 2.30am their time, so they're obviously
insane and should be in bed. Changing the time to be local time loses
data.

In summary: Timezones suck. We should all just use UTC for
everything <wink>

-- 
Anthony Baxter     <anthony at interlink.com.au>
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.