Re: Idea for handling timezones

[Samuel Wales]

what i proposed is this.  which uses text properties.  it might not
suit your needs, but might be a workaround.  at least it is a
brainstorm.  suitable for wrapping fish.

1] convert all your tses to utc [exercise for the reader]
2] make org's idea of time be utc [there /might/ be code]
3] make org display local time and tz [see below]

3 is customizable: (info "(org) Custom time format")


On 4/2/21, Shironeko <shironeko@tesaguri.club> wrote:
> On Sat, 2021-04-03 at 10:37 +1100, Tim Cross wrote:
>>
>> 1. Timzone alone is not sufficient. Offsets from UTC change due to
>> daylight savings times etc.
>>
>> 2. You can easily have timestamps from different timezones in the same
>> org file
>>
>> 3. Storing timestamps in local time is problematic because of the
>> inherent ambiguity this can have (again, due to daylight savings times
>> and what occurs at the 'cut over' time).
>>
>> 4. Sometimes, you may want the timestamp to reflect the date/time as it
>> was when recorded and don't want it to 'change' because your now viewing
>> it in a different timezone etc.
>
> 1 and 3 is addressed by the use of tz database, it makes sure the timezone
> conversion is lossless. 2 and 4 is really not the target for this proposal,
> this
> feature is completely optional and this is really meant to solve the "I want
> to
> see when I need to get my tasks done" which is a particular headache when
> there
> is timezone involved.
>
>> Personally, I think timestamp 'storage' and timestamp 'display' need to
>> be treated separately. I also think all relevant information (timezone,
>> offset) need to be stored with the timestamp. I also think the
>> fundamental base timestamp should be stored as UTC, allowing all time
>> calculations to be consistent (free of daylight savings time changes).
>> The user can then manage how the value is displayed by setting timezone
>> and offsets as appropriate (with perhaps the default being the local
>> system settings or whatever offset/tz was stored with the timestamp
>> itself).
>>
>> It is very difficult to predict or understand all the use cases for
>> timestamps. Therefore, any scheme must be extremely flexible. Experience
>> has taught me that one critical component is that at the lowest level,
>> many problems are avoided if the value is in UTC. Problem is, UTC is not
>> terribly human friendly. Luckily, this can largely be automated for many
>> common use cases. Unfortunately, it does also mean that if you are
>> someone who frequently moves between many timezones, your situation will
>> be more complicated.
>>
>> ne of the most frustrating parts of working with timestamps is daylight
>> saving times. This causes complications at so many levels. In
>> particular, I hate the fact change over dates often change and more
>> often than not, those changes are based around politics and at the whim
>> of politicians, which makes programatic handling more complex than it
>> needs to be.
>>
>
> yes, this is why I want to avoid changing the timestamp itself, since that
> will
> never lead to working solutions soon.
>
> Regards,
> shiro
>
>
>


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