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What if you're building a $350M machine that weighs many tons, located deep inside a concrete facility and will never ever be moved? The people who operate this

by Lendal 7y ago

What if you're building a $350M machine that weighs many tons, located deep inside a concrete facility and will never ever be moved? The people who operate this machine years in the future will read a date on a log file or database table and make decisions that could affect the lives of millions of people, all of whom live in the same time zone with said machine. I don't want these people to be forced to convert UTC in their heads when there is no reason for it except for some abstract rule created by someone who doesn't know the first thing about this machine and its purpose, or the people who live there.

fnord123 7y ago
If you have very specific design constraints, please don't use advice from random people on the internet as though it's absolute gospel.
- twic 7y ago
  I am intrigued by the implied possibility of a project without specific design constraints.
- falsedan 7y ago
  the design constraint almost 100% matches 'my desktop computer in my house'. please don't vapidly declare some logocentric nonsense and assume people who know better can just ignore your comment.
lmm 7y ago
> The people who operate this machine years in the future will read a date on a log file or database table and make decisions that could affect the lives of millions of people, all of whom live in the same time zone with said machine. They live in the same time zone now. What makes you so sure it will be the same time zone for the lifetime of the machine? More insidiously, what makes you so sure that that timezone's DST rules won't change, leading to timestamps that are correct half the year and then almost, but not quite, correct the other half of the year? Or worse, that are correct for 50 weeks of the year and then out by an hour for 2 weeks a year because the DST change date got moved? Better to use UTC and get those operators in the habit of converting every time.
- pstuart 7y ago
  > Better to use UTC and have their tools translate at display time FTFY
icebraining 7y ago
> convert UTC in their heads Why would they do that, instead of using the computer to do it?

by Lendal 7y ago

fnord123 7y ago

If you have very specific design constraints, please don't use advice from random people on the internet as though it's absolute gospel.

twic 7y ago
I am intrigued by the implied possibility of a project without specific design constraints.
falsedan 7y ago
the design constraint almost 100% matches 'my desktop computer in my house'. please don't vapidly declare some logocentric nonsense and assume people who know better can just ignore your comment.

lmm 7y ago

> The people who operate this machine years in the future will read a date on a log file or database table and make decisions that could affect the lives of millions of people, all of whom live in the same time zone with said machine. They live in the same time zone now. What makes you so sure it will be the same time zone for the lifetime of the machine? More insidiously, what makes you so sure that that timezone's DST rules won't change, leading to timestamps that are correct half the year and then almost, but not quite, correct the other half of the year? Or worse, that are correct for 50 weeks of the year and then out by an hour for 2 weeks a year because the DST change date got moved? Better to use UTC and get those operators in the habit of converting every time.

pstuart 7y ago
> Better to use UTC and have their tools translate at display time FTFY

icebraining 7y ago

> convert UTC in their heads Why would they do that, instead of using the computer to do it?