Right, for explicitly recording a timestamp without having to refer to a historical time zone database it would seem to make a tiny bit of sense... but recordin

Right, for explicitly recording a timestamp without having to refer to a historical time zone database it would seem to make a tiny bit of sense... but recording the actual time zone would work just as well for historical data and future times. I just have a hard time imagining a scenario where you really care about the offset... the timestamp itself is enough. Maybe it's just historical baggage from not wanting to keep that historical record of time zones around for all eternity? I dunno. It's a bit weird to me. It's a very indirect (precise) measure of something that doesn't seem like it would have much use over just recording the direct measure (TZ and/or just the UTC timestamp) The more your learn about datetime the more confusing it gets, I suppose :). I guess it's good to know that it can get very confusing (and therefore to tread carefully) and to temper one's expectations of datetime libraries.