3 ms·
You still have the fundamental issue of storing it correctly in the first place. Do most languages time libraries account for localized temporal shifts of this
by IggleSniggle 3y ago
You still have the fundamental issue of storing it correctly in the first place. Do most languages time libraries account for localized temporal shifts of this nature by default? It does seem true that you could query an authoritative source, but on entry:
If I say the event happened 60 years ago exactly, and it’s 1pm, what do I mean by “exactly?” Do I mean the day 60 years ago, at 1pm? Or 60 years ago, taking into account timezone shifts? Do I, the person entering this information, even know or care about this distinction? If you enter an event as 60 years ago, would your average joe expect that the time would shift by 23 minutes, or would they think there’s something wrong with the software?
What about timezone differences that vary depending not only on geography, but also on the ethnicity of the people associated with the event?
- BlueTemplar 3y agoYou mean ethnicities that are still deprived of nationhood, so the empire they are subjects of assigns different timezones to them compared to other ethnicities they rule ?? (Any examples ??)
- ElevenLathe 3y agoThe classic example (and it may in fact be the only extant one) is the occupied West Bank, where Israelis keep a different time than Palestinians (sometimes): https://www.972mag.com/the-worlds-only-ethnic-time-zone/ https://www.972mag.com/the-worlds-only-ethnic-time-zone/
- dragonwriter 3y agoYeah, ISTR that there are (or have recently been) some at least theoretical (that is, where there were political claims with different timezones, but not necessarily populations in the affected area using both) ones besides that, but that may well be the only current one.
- richiebful1 3y agoThere's some informal use of a Xinjiang timezone among Uyghurs. China as a whole only has one official timezone. [1] https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/china/urumqi https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/china/urumqi [more background here] https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/11/china-only-has-one-time-zone-and-thats-a-problem/281136/ https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/11/china-only...
- dragonwriter 3y ago> What about timezone differences that vary depending not only on geography, but also on the ethnicity of the people associated with the event? Typically, recently, this problem would occur in disputed territories where the “legal time” at a certain point differs because it is claimed by different polities with different timezone rules, so its more of political allegiance than ethnicity (though those correlate).
- remram 3y agoYou are correct but also don't have to look that far: in Indiana USA, different counties have different daylight-saving rules, so "August 13 1pm" is a different time depending in which county you are (or live, or work).
- Aachen 3y ago> Do I, the person entering this information, even know or care about [the time of the event I'm referring to]? I'm sorry but if you don't even know yourself what you mean, the computer cannot know it either. The topic here is how to store a datetime, not how to guess meanings. > What about timezone differences that vary depending not only on geography, but also on the ethnicity of the people associated with the event? Again, display conversion. Have these natives put their date system into the timezone database and make the UI have a selector for this timezone. Under the hood it still happened at a certain actual moment in time which is what should be stored in the database. No significant difference from any other timezone that you have to apply to a unix timestamp to get a display time, or conversely, apply to input data to get the timestamp to store.
- axus 3y agoI'd have yet another interpretation: the exact time when Earth needed precisely 60 revolutions around the sun to reach its current location.