Re:How to save datetimes for future events
by masklinn on Monday March 23, 2015 @03:01PM
(#9252727)
You haven't actually read the article have you?
> It's better to simply store the UTC time of the event, and nothing else. Local time zone conversions can be done when displaying/editing.
That timezone conversion is the problem, the UTC offset of a physical location can change drastically with surprisingly little notice. You schedule a meeting on your calendar for 10AM, it's stored as XUTC, the rules changes now your calendar tells you your meeting is at 11AM local time, you've missed your meeting (because you were physically meeting your VC who uses their own calendar which does not have that specific issue).
And being an hour off is pretty tame, back in 2011 Samoa flipped across the international date line, if you had scheduled a meeting after the flip and it was stored in UTC but edited or viewed in local time you would now go to it a day off.
> It's better to simply store the UTC time of the event, and nothing else. Local time zone conversions can be done when displaying/editing.
That timezone conversion is the problem, the UTC offset of a physical location can change drastically with surprisingly little notice. You schedule a meeting on your calendar for 10AM, it's stored as XUTC, the rules changes now your calendar tells you your meeting is at 11AM local time, you've missed your meeting (because you were physically meeting your VC who uses their own calendar which does not have that specific issue).
And being an hour off is pretty tame, back in 2011 Samoa flipped across the international date line, if you had scheduled a meeting after the flip and it was stored in UTC but edited or viewed in local time you would now go to it a day off.