[LEAPSECS] Leap second relationship to ISO 8601

[Tony Finch]

Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:

> >> > > For example, a date and time in New York City might be represented
> >> > > as 2014-07-04T00:00:00-05:00 [...]
> >> >
> >> > The former is incorrect.
> >>
> >> Incorrect where?
> >
> >The UTC offset in New York at that time was not -05:00 so that cannot be a
> >time in New York.
>
> You're missing the quiet genius of 8601 here:
>
> Who said the date and time of the event which happened in New York
> were represented on local timescale there at the time ?

I thought that is what Brooks was trying to do.

Obviously when ISO 8601 talks about local time it is leaving it to some
unspecified context to determine what locality the time belongs to; in
this discussion the locality is New York, and it would be particularly
contrary of Brooks to want to represent the time in New York using some
other place's local time.

> By explicitly stating the UTC offset numerically, 8601 decouples
> it from any cultural basis it might have had and becomes a standalone
> representation of a moment in time.

Right, and this is good for many purposes, e.g. recording times of events
now or in the past. However for events in the future (meetings etc.) you
need to record a time and a place, because the UTC offset and time zone
rules are not predictable.

Tony.
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