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I think you're right, but that the tone I read in your words would prevent people from improving. Rather than "I'm so clever" it is more "this isn't complicate
by ergothus 7y ago
I think you're right, but that the tone I read in your words would prevent people from improving.
Rather than "I'm so clever" it is more "this isn't complicated". One can argue they mean the same thing, but I'd say they mean different things if comparing to an outside scale. The solution to thinking you're so clever is to reduce your arrogance, but the solution to thinking problems are simple is to stop assuming any problem is simple.
- inlined 7y agoMy favorite incorrect fact is that there are 24 timezones. In fact, the number of offsets from UTC fluctuates throughout the year (at least last I worked on scheduling in 2012. Back then it was either 39 or 40 depending on DST)
- adrianmonk 7y agoThat becomes fairly obvious when you consider Arizona doesn't observe DST, but Utah is the same longitude (lies directly north) and does observe DST.
- filoleg 7y agoYep. And there also small regions that observe daylights savings WITHIN regions that don’t observe daylight savings WITHIn regions that do observe it. For example, in Indiana it is on a per county basis[1]. 1. https://www.timeanddate.com/time/us/indiana-time.html https://www.timeanddate.com/time/us/indiana-time.html
- adrianmonk 7y agoSpeaking of within, I fibbed slightly about Arizona. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Arizona https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Arizona The Navajo Nation is within Arizona's boundaries, and it does observe DST. And the Hopi Reservation is within the Navajo Nation, and it does not observe DST. And since Arizona is surrounded by California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Mexico, all of which do observe DST, that means you have an island of no-DST (Hopi) inside an island of DST (Navajo) inside an island of no-DST (Arizona) inside an area of DST (adjoining US states plus Mexico).
- danaliv 7y agoWell that's almost enough to make one think daylight saving time is a bunch of cracked-up nonsense!
- bpye 7y agoHow did we screw up time zones so much?
- SllX 7y agoWe invented and then implemented time zones and then invented and then implemented daylight savings time; arbitrarily and with arbitrary laws and treaties. There are days where I think I should go back to a mechanical watch and adjust the time each day at high noon. It won’t agree with anyone else’s time most of the time, but at least it will be correct.
- jfk13 7y agoBut won't it be wrong as soon as you start travelling east or west, though?
- macintux 7y agoSomewhere I have an old book which includes time zone maps for Indiana in the 50s and 60s. Every single year there were changes.
- mason55 7y agoYeah I always feel like a jerk when people open tickets in the summer saying “Please do this at #:## EST” and I have to reply “thanks for providing a time but it’s currently EDT in NYC. Is that what you meant?”
- michaelmior 7y agoI hear you. It almost always is what people meant but most of us (myself included) rarely think about the distinction.
- jimktrains2 7y agoI've just gotten to saying ET (or equivalent) all year-round .
- macintux 7y agoThat’s the battle I fight: persuading people that saying “Eastern” is accurate and sufficiently precise. Precise and inaccurate is a bad combination.
- lopmotr 7y agoThat's only slightly worse than how I feel when people say that something's happening in the summer when it's actually winter where I live.
- wil421 7y agoNo reason to be snarky with people. They mean whatever time it currently is or will be.
- heavenlyblue 7y agoAre you sure though? If they copied that date from some automated system it might as well be any of these. Humans usually say “New York time”.
- jws 7y agoDST rules are just insane. I'm responsible for some code where I just drew the line and 40 some odd people in one of the Antarctic stations are just going to have to live with wrong time part of the year if they ever run my code. I'm not adding another code path and test case just because these people wanted their own special concept of time. I don't remember the pattern, but I think it was maybe a daylight savings time and then an extra one stacked in the middle.
- petre 7y agoWe have endless problems with DST as well. I can't wait for the EU directive that abolishes it. Russia dropped it years ago. We'll still have to support past times and other timezones though.
- meepso 7y agoI wonder how long time it will take to forget DST if it is abolished. Will that messy spaghetti code be ripped out and never seen again.
- jon-wood 7y agoMost standard libraries still have support for the Julian calendar. That stuff is never going away.
- mkl 7y agoI doubt it's "most". Python, Javascript, and C++ don't seem to. The only ones I found that do seem to are C# and Java.
- inlined 7y agoI just got a ruby gem from someone who actually made tables on the stuff. I made a script that cut out far past and future times to lower loading time from 10m to 30s and figured I could upgrade the gem to leverage an expert’s research as timezones changed (e.g. India changing zones)
- jpindar 7y agoAnd that it's possible for two places to be more than 24 hours apart.
- foobarchu 7y agoThere's also half hour timezones, found at least in India, and I think a couple quarter hour zones.
- stcredzero 7y agobut that the tone I read in your words would prevent people from improving Are people really that fragile? Yes and no. The solution to thinking you're so clever is to reduce your arrogance, but the solution to thinking problems are simple is to stop assuming any problem is simple. Isn't humility the answer to both? Someone should develop a humility course for programmers involving an "ultra drone," writing the date/time library for it, and some simulated world test cases. Such "humility exercises" are found in various disciplines. There's one for CIA analysts, involving analyzing US Civil War sites via sat photos, then having them visit in person.
- ergothus 7y ago> Are people really that fragile? It's not fragility, so much as perspective. When you are thinking something is simple, and you say "Am I'm thinking I'm impressed with my own cleverness?" it's easy to say "no". Because it's not arrogant to think you can accomplish something simple. When you are thinking something is simple, and you say "Am I assuming simplicity?" it's easy to say "yes". Realizing you're committing the fallacy is the first step to avoiding it.