2 ms·

"Random time zone offset changes are not." Are you saying that our computer systems are so inflexible that we cannot make them do our bidding? The issue here h

"Random time zone offset changes are not." Are you saying that our computer systems are so inflexible that we cannot make them do our bidding? The issue here has nothing to do with whether daylight saving is appropriate or not, rather it's about the inability of computers to adapt quickly. When I was studying computing I had a textbook titled Problems for Computer Solution, it was about how to get computers to do our bidding - not vice versa!

lifthrasiir 4y ago
It would be indeed great if our computer systems could adapt to those changes quickly. But the reality is that they can't, and there are many excuses available; for example there are many devices which are not continuously connected to the global network but can still keep a clock ticking. Jurisdictions are expected to take account of this reality, no matter you like it or not.
throwaway09223 4y ago
"Are you saying that our computer systems are so inflexible that we cannot make them do our bidding? " Yes, of course that is the case. Any non-internet connected clock (microwaves, cars, toys, $10 alarm clocks, wristwatches, etc) will not be able to respond to these types of changes. Calling these computers may be significantly overstating their abilities. "it was about how to get computers to do our bidding - not vice versa" It's much easier to declare that problems ought not exist, than to actually solve them in a practical, global manner. In many cases, the owner of the device also isn't aware of the change. This is not a problem specific to software.
- hilbert42 4y ago
  "Any non-internet connected clock (microwaves, cars, toys, $10 alarm clocks, wristwatches, etc) will not be able to respond to these types of changes." My post about 19th C. timezones and train timetables is about this very point. All these independent systems are independent 'timezones' and that's the problem - and it's a fundamental one! First, closed systems are intrinsically subject to drift and will never really be on time anyway. Second, there's nothing wrong with an independent closed system having a 'clock' - 'oscillator' would be a better word here - but it was all too convenient to couple this with external time systems. In essence, independent closed systems will never be in sync with external time. If closed systems have to have time clocks that are an analog of real-world time then they should always be considered an approximation as with all analog systems. Relying on them for accuracy has to be a last ditch resort. The trouble is that we never adopted this newer mindset from the outset of digital systems, instead we simply repeated the earlier mistake of every town having its own timezone. There are ways around these problems just as there were in the 19th C. but no one has bothered to implement them. This is not the place to delve into them except to say that they involve both technological solutions and an automatic assumption by humans that closed systems cannot be relied upon to provide accurate time.
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    I think you're mixing up a few different causes and concepts. Wristwatches are generally accurate and can generally be relied upon. It's not practical or reasonable to say they should be a "last ditch resort" simply because they do not handle legislative corner cases. All clocks are approximations to some degree, because time and space are relative. This is true of all systems of measurement in science, in general. It's not possible to have a computer perfectly account for all legislative corner cases for the same reason it's not possible to have a perfect map: Grey areas exist within law and geopolitics. Knowing the time requires knowing map boundaries and which authority controls a given area. For example: Does Ukraine observe DST? The Donbass region? Furthermore there are practical costs associated with automatic clocks: A GPS, an updating map system and an updating database of time legislation is expensive to implement in terms of hardware, energy, etc. These are not problems that no one's bothered to implement. They come at a cost which we aren't willing to shoulder, or in some cases are intractably complex social questions with simple pragmatic work-arounds (make the clock dumb and set it to whatever you wish) In reality, close enough is often good enough. Perfection isn't necessary.
    - hilbert42 4y ago
      "It's not practical or reasonable to say they should be a "last ditch resort" simply because they do not handle legislative corner cases." I essentially agree with this comment and most of what you've said. No doubt, in hindsight, I could have expressed the matter more clearly and succinctly. What I should have stressed is that there should be a greater emphasis placed on the formal aspects of the problem (as opposed to day-to-day practicalities). If from a computer science perspective we had a more clearly defined formalism in respect of time then programmers would be much more careful about time ambiguities and separating internal clock mechanisms from external ones. I've not given this huge thought but if say computer languages had declarative statements and underlying mechanisms to separate internal and external clocks then some of these problems may be averted. This perhaps could be extended further by having any number of 'clock subsystems' and having a formal mechanism that defines (and or couples) the relationships between them. If languages made these distinctions in clear, non ambiguous ways then they'd always be at the forefront of programmers' minds even if on most occasions those relationships were set to 1:1. If one thinks about it this isn't as a preposterous idea as it may seem as the whole notion of relative time naturally falls out of Relativity/Spacetime. Making computers and compter languages inherently aware of the fact would likely bring benefits. This, no doubt, would add upfront complexity but the payoff would come when dealing with problems of the type we've been discussing here.
tsimionescu 4y ago
Most computers adapt just fine. International travel and cooperation are the real problem, especially in our increasingly globalized world.

lifthrasiir 4y ago

It would be indeed great if our computer systems could adapt to those changes quickly. But the reality is that they can't, and there are many excuses available; for example there are many devices which are not continuously connected to the global network but can still keep a clock ticking. Jurisdictions are expected to take account of this reality, no matter you like it or not.

throwaway09223 4y ago

"Are you saying that our computer systems are so inflexible that we cannot make them do our bidding? " Yes, of course that is the case. Any non-internet connected clock (microwaves, cars, toys, $10 alarm clocks, wristwatches, etc) will not be able to respond to these types of changes. Calling these computers may be significantly overstating their abilities. "it was about how to get computers to do our bidding - not vice versa" It's much easier to declare that problems ought not exist, than to actually solve them in a practical, global manner. In many cases, the owner of the device also isn't aware of the change. This is not a problem specific to software.

hilbert42 4y ago
"Any non-internet connected clock (microwaves, cars, toys, $10 alarm clocks, wristwatches, etc) will not be able to respond to these types of changes." My post about 19th C. timezones and train timetables is about this very point. All these independent systems are independent 'timezones' and that's the problem - and it's a fundamental one! First, closed systems are intrinsically subject to drift and will never really be on time anyway. Second, there's nothing wrong with an independent closed system having a 'clock' - 'oscillator' would be a better word here - but it was all too convenient to couple this with external time systems. In essence, independent closed systems will never be in sync with external time. If closed systems have to have time clocks that are an analog of real-world time then they should always be considered an approximation as with all analog systems. Relying on them for accuracy has to be a last ditch resort. The trouble is that we never adopted this newer mindset from the outset of digital systems, instead we simply repeated the earlier mistake of every town having its own timezone. There are ways around these problems just as there were in the 19th C. but no one has bothered to implement them. This is not the place to delve into them except to say that they involve both technological solutions and an automatic assumption by humans that closed systems cannot be relied upon to provide accurate time.
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  I think you're mixing up a few different causes and concepts. Wristwatches are generally accurate and can generally be relied upon. It's not practical or reasonable to say they should be a "last ditch resort" simply because they do not handle legislative corner cases. All clocks are approximations to some degree, because time and space are relative. This is true of all systems of measurement in science, in general. It's not possible to have a computer perfectly account for all legislative corner cases for the same reason it's not possible to have a perfect map: Grey areas exist within law and geopolitics. Knowing the time requires knowing map boundaries and which authority controls a given area. For example: Does Ukraine observe DST? The Donbass region? Furthermore there are practical costs associated with automatic clocks: A GPS, an updating map system and an updating database of time legislation is expensive to implement in terms of hardware, energy, etc. These are not problems that no one's bothered to implement. They come at a cost which we aren't willing to shoulder, or in some cases are intractably complex social questions with simple pragmatic work-arounds (make the clock dumb and set it to whatever you wish) In reality, close enough is often good enough. Perfection isn't necessary.
  - hilbert42 4y ago
    "It's not practical or reasonable to say they should be a "last ditch resort" simply because they do not handle legislative corner cases." I essentially agree with this comment and most of what you've said. No doubt, in hindsight, I could have expressed the matter more clearly and succinctly. What I should have stressed is that there should be a greater emphasis placed on the formal aspects of the problem (as opposed to day-to-day practicalities). If from a computer science perspective we had a more clearly defined formalism in respect of time then programmers would be much more careful about time ambiguities and separating internal clock mechanisms from external ones. I've not given this huge thought but if say computer languages had declarative statements and underlying mechanisms to separate internal and external clocks then some of these problems may be averted. This perhaps could be extended further by having any number of 'clock subsystems' and having a formal mechanism that defines (and or couples) the relationships between them. If languages made these distinctions in clear, non ambiguous ways then they'd always be at the forefront of programmers' minds even if on most occasions those relationships were set to 1:1. If one thinks about it this isn't as a preposterous idea as it may seem as the whole notion of relative time naturally falls out of Relativity/Spacetime. Making computers and compter languages inherently aware of the fact would likely bring benefits. This, no doubt, would add upfront complexity but the payoff would come when dealing with problems of the type we've been discussing here.

tsimionescu 4y ago

Most computers adapt just fine. International travel and cooperation are the real problem, especially in our increasingly globalized world.