3 ms·

What if London doesn't exist by the event time?

by tadfisher 3y ago

klysm 3y ago
Then the scheduled time is probably irrelevant so who cares
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  Not necessarily the scheduled event may be in some other city in a different time zone that wants this timezone for the convenience of scheduling attendees from across the world.
  - Mayelitol 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - gumby 3y ago
    In which case a new calendar appointment will be circulated to the survivors with location and details. This mechanism already exists and is surely adequate.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      The point is to have some means, some facility, to schedule things 100% correctly in advance. If there literally is no possible method then that's a pretty surprising aspect of computer systems circa 2023.
      - gumby 3y ago
        The real world is messy. We can't even predict when the sun will be overhead at any given location a decade or so in advance. This is why I left computer science research. I realized I was working on things that only made sense inside the machine.
        klysm 3y ago
        Such an absolute perspective on the utility of computer science isn’t very pragmatic. Computers have the power to interact with the real world, and play a major part in billions of lives every day.
throw0101a 3y ago
> What if London doesn't exist by the event time? Europe/London will be either be left alone for historical purposes, or aliased to its successor for backwards compatibility. See Type: Link and Source file: backward: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
gumby 3y ago
Might be hard to meet there without radiation protection.
rini17 3y ago
You are either joking or you really think a RFC to cover such changes is possible? If so, do you have any examples in mind? Cities that stop existing is not a new problem.
kzrdude 3y ago
I have never thought about it before, but are timezone names like 'Europe/London' designed to not be sensitive to political changes and not have to change? It could have been Country/City or Region/Country but it's Continent/City instead. Continents or regions of the world don't change fast or due to politics (not often) and cities aren't renamed or disappear that often, so this scheme is probably a lot more stable than any that uses political entities. (Think about countries that split or rename or become occupied, the locations of cities like Sevastopol (occupation), or Juba (Sudan/South Sudan split) or Jerusalem (every controversy).)
- fanf2 3y ago
  Yes, the city is chosen to be the most populous in the time zone. There’s a long discussion of the policy in https://www.ietf.org/timezones/theory.html https://www.ietf.org/timezones/theory.html
Karellen 3y ago
I'm content for that to be a failure mode of the format. :-)
cesarb 3y ago
> What if London doesn't exist by the event time? Or what if it's split into two cities, which half were you talking about? This has famously happened with Berlin.

What if London doesn't exist by the event time?

klysm 3y ago

Then the scheduled time is probably irrelevant so who cares

MichaelZuo 3y ago
Not necessarily the scheduled event may be in some other city in a different time zone that wants this timezone for the convenience of scheduling attendees from across the world.
- Mayelitol 3y ago
  [flagged]
- gumby 3y ago
  In which case a new calendar appointment will be circulated to the survivors with location and details. This mechanism already exists and is surely adequate.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    The point is to have some means, some facility, to schedule things 100% correctly in advance. If there literally is no possible method then that's a pretty surprising aspect of computer systems circa 2023.
    - gumby 3y ago
      The real world is messy. We can't even predict when the sun will be overhead at any given location a decade or so in advance. This is why I left computer science research. I realized I was working on things that only made sense inside the machine.
      - klysm 3y ago
        Such an absolute perspective on the utility of computer science isn’t very pragmatic. Computers have the power to interact with the real world, and play a major part in billions of lives every day.

throw0101a 3y ago

> What if London doesn't exist by the event time? Europe/London will be either be left alone for historical purposes, or aliased to its successor for backwards compatibility. See Type: Link and Source file: backward: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones

gumby 3y ago

Might be hard to meet there without radiation protection.

rini17 3y ago

You are either joking or you really think a RFC to cover such changes is possible? If so, do you have any examples in mind? Cities that stop existing is not a new problem.

kzrdude 3y ago

I have never thought about it before, but are timezone names like 'Europe/London' designed to not be sensitive to political changes and not have to change? It could have been Country/City or Region/Country but it's Continent/City instead. Continents or regions of the world don't change fast or due to politics (not often) and cities aren't renamed or disappear that often, so this scheme is probably a lot more stable than any that uses political entities. (Think about countries that split or rename or become occupied, the locations of cities like Sevastopol (occupation), or Juba (Sudan/South Sudan split) or Jerusalem (every controversy).)

fanf2 3y ago
Yes, the city is chosen to be the most populous in the time zone. There’s a long discussion of the policy in https://www.ietf.org/timezones/theory.html https://www.ietf.org/timezones/theory.html

Karellen 3y ago

I'm content for that to be a failure mode of the format. :-)

cesarb 3y ago

> What if London doesn't exist by the event time? Or what if it's split into two cities, which half were you talking about? This has famously happened with Berlin.