[geeks] DST hell

[Mike Hebel]

On Mar 11, 2007, at 6:15 AM, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:

> On Sat, 10 Mar 2007, Mike Hebel wrote:
>
>>> As a "for instance" - say I've got a database that is storing
>>> date/time stamps in UTC, but my users want to see DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM,
>>> after the code retrieves the timestamp, the application will need to
>>> convert it (or your DB will have to convert it, same diff really)...
>>
>> If you're talking posted transaction dates/times and such then as long
>> as the desktops point to something that is DST patched for their time
>> sync then why would it matter?
>
> Because DST doesn't change what time it is, only how the time is
> displayed to the user.  The amount of time since the epoch does not 
> jump
> an hour at the DST boundary, and every sane clock-synchronization
> protocol uses a delta-since-epoch time base, not local time.  
> Otherwise,
> you'd have to know the time zone of every NTP server you connect to.`
>
> That is, of course, unless by "DST patched for their time sync" you 
> mean
> to tell the time server to lie about the time by a factor of one hour
> for three weeks in March and one week in October in order to work 
> around
> patching desktops.  For, if you were to do that, far, FAR more things
> would break[0] at each of your four boundary points.

Ok.  NOW I understand why it won't work.

Thanks Johnathan!

Mike Hebel
----
I met a lone man in the desert, a traveling priest, Nicholas D. 
Wolfwood. He smiled and then he told me that I'm a troubled man. Faced 
with his all seeing smile there was nothing I could say in my defense. 
Did I meet this man because I was destined to or, was it simply by a 
small jest of God? The man's name is Nicholas D. Wolfwood, a traveling 
priest I met in the desert. - Vash