[Dev] Re: Time zones in Chandler

[Mike Taylor]

People may not use UTC but chandler as a repository should only store UTC
since that is the only way to ensure no ambiguity.

Now that doesn't mean your points are not required - each input source for a
date being feed into chandler has to be aware of the source time zone and
pass that along or make the user aware that the time zone is ambigious and
that the local time zone will be used.

bear

-----Original Message-----
From: dev-bounces at osafoundation.org
[mailto:dev-bounces at osafoundation.org]On Behalf Of yuppie
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2004 1:49 PM
To: dev at osafoundation.org
Subject: [Dev] Re: Time zones in Chandler


Hi!


Anthony Baxter wrote:
> You really, really, really don't want to be storing timestamps as
> anything other than UTC (GMT). Timezones are a presentation thing.
[...]
> In summary: Timezones suck. We should all just use UTC for
> everything <wink>

The problem is: People don't use UTC. They use local time. And there is
no chance to convert local time to UTC without introducing errors.

See e.g. this page for some information about timezone irregularities:
<http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/f.html>

If I'm forced to use UTC to store an event in Chandler and lawmakers
change daylight time, I might come one hour too early or too late to my
appointment.

Maybe you want to store birth dates in Chandler, including the exact
time? And not just of living persons, but also of your grandparents? Do
you always know the correct timezone? How do you convert these dates to UTC?

These are border cases. But I think Chandler should be able to handle
border cases, not just the usual cases where timezone conversion works.


Cheers,
	Yuppie




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