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Timezones are disaster. Once upon a time it was difficult and time consuming to make changes to them. Then the world began developing more and "accurate" time
by bcrl 4y ago
Timezones are disaster. Once upon a time it was difficult and time consuming to make changes to them. Then the world began developing more and "accurate" timekeeping devices. Atomic clocks were developed and began to be miniaturized. Then someone had the brilliant that incredibly accurate clocks could be used to determine location. GPS was born.
A few decades pass and we now all have highly accurate "clocks" that we carry around in our pockets that receive GPS signals and sync their idea of time to what the satellite thinks. Sounds great, right?
Except, humans don't actually use atomic clocks as the basis for their timekeeping. We look outside and expect the time on the clock to mostly match with the position of the sun in the sky.
Once leap seconds became entangled in them, the whole thing basically a toxic pile of radioactive waste. Timezones are now being updated multiple times a year since the internet means we can update them at will. The whole thing is now a giant mess of toxic radioactive waste that can never be correct for any extended period of time.
We, the software industry, did this to ourselves. We built this, we have to live with it, and it's never going away.
- fsckboy 4y agocomputers are good at keeping track of things that humans aren't. tracking timezones is in your computer's wheelhouse, don't be scared of it.
- bcrl 4y agoI'm not scared of it. It's unnecessary excessive complexity that we have foisted onto ourselves. It has caused countless bugs and will most likely cause countless more before I die. Show me the software that copes with timezone changes at runtime.
- nikau 4y agohumans having to convert times from UTC to local timezone will also result in countless hours wasted in troubleshooting.
- Spivak 4y agoEvery phone when people travel? It really isn’t that hard. What makes you pull your hair out is dealing with 3rd party code that handles it incorrectly. Do everything internal in UTC or always attach a timezone to dates, your choice. When you cross the boundary either ingesting naive dates or displaying them read the system time zone again and convert. I mean it’s kinda annoying but “naive” times is the time equivalent of storing arrays without their length. I can’t fathom why we even allow it.
- hnfong 4y agoThat's what happens when you let a sect of Sun-worshipping astrologers redefine the minute to have up to 61 seconds...