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Does anyone actually believe this? Even the most inexperienced developers I’ve worked with are well aware that time, and timezones in particular, are really di

Does anyone actually believe this? Even the most inexperienced developers I’ve worked with are well aware that time, and timezones in particular, are really difficult. I’ve yet to meet anyone that has suggested using anything other than a battle-hardened standard library for time.

WhyNotHugo 4y ago
> Does anyone actually believe this? Does any programmer believe ALL these falsehoods? Not very likely. Do most programmers believe AT LEAST ONE of these falsehoods? Likely. > I’ve yet to meet anyone that has suggested using anything other than a battle-hardened standard library for time. Many stdlibs still don't account for the most edge of corner cases -- or make it very easy to screw up anyway.
BurningPenguin 4y ago
I once worked for a company, where the gps platform had multiple time related problems. This list pretty much sums it all up.
bee_rider 4y ago
I bet you could get me to give the wrong answer to most of these questions if you worded it cleverly in informal conversation, but the answer to anything time and date related in a technical setting is "Ugh, we'll have to look up the stupid edge cases here," right?
- cgrealy 4y ago
  Exactly. And you also need to understand your timing requirements. If all you care about is recording a date on an invoice, you really don’t need to worry about leap seconds or smearing or whatever.
yccs27 4y ago
Even if you use a library, it's easy to bake in an "obvious" assumption into your program. Such as storing location + date + time, because that should be unambiguous, right? Or confusing "same time tomorrow" with now + 24h. Are you even sure which one you need?
- mayoi 4y ago
  > Are you even sure which one you need? Any examples of when you need "now + 24h" instead of same time tomorrow? For example, daylight savings may start the next day, and time will be adjusted... And everything will be done 1 hour earlier than today despite the hour on the clock being "same time" as today, so what? Other than your body needing to readjust the sleep cycles, noone else seems to actually care. Meanwhile, when I setup cron to do something daily, I don't care about this at all, so what if on one day, the interval will be 23 or 25 hours?

WhyNotHugo 4y ago

> Does anyone actually believe this? Does any programmer believe ALL these falsehoods? Not very likely. Do most programmers believe AT LEAST ONE of these falsehoods? Likely. > I’ve yet to meet anyone that has suggested using anything other than a battle-hardened standard library for time. Many stdlibs still don't account for the most edge of corner cases -- or make it very easy to screw up anyway.

BurningPenguin 4y ago

I once worked for a company, where the gps platform had multiple time related problems. This list pretty much sums it all up.

bee_rider 4y ago

I bet you could get me to give the wrong answer to most of these questions if you worded it cleverly in informal conversation, but the answer to anything time and date related in a technical setting is "Ugh, we'll have to look up the stupid edge cases here," right?

cgrealy 4y ago
Exactly. And you also need to understand your timing requirements. If all you care about is recording a date on an invoice, you really don’t need to worry about leap seconds or smearing or whatever.

yccs27 4y ago

Even if you use a library, it's easy to bake in an "obvious" assumption into your program. Such as storing location + date + time, because that should be unambiguous, right? Or confusing "same time tomorrow" with now + 24h. Are you even sure which one you need?

mayoi 4y ago
> Are you even sure which one you need? Any examples of when you need "now + 24h" instead of same time tomorrow? For example, daylight savings may start the next day, and time will be adjusted... And everything will be done 1 hour earlier than today despite the hour on the clock being "same time" as today, so what? Other than your body needing to readjust the sleep cycles, noone else seems to actually care. Meanwhile, when I setup cron to do something daily, I don't care about this at all, so what if on one day, the interval will be 23 or 25 hours?