[LEAPSECS] Future time

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <52DC19FF.9499.11A39558 at dan.tobias.name>, "Daniel R. Tobias" writes:


>When I'm making an advance dinner reservation for 7 PM on October 1, 

>2014 in New York City, I expect that [...]


That used to be the "sensible party position", but it breaks down
in heaps once you start to schedule tele-conferences etc.

Does "Telecon, New York, 3pm Oct 1" mean that is when it will
actually happen in New York, or does it mean that it will happen
at "11:00Z" and somebody tried to translate that to New York time
and got it wrong or didn't know about US' DST rules or .. ?

In the end, only the user can know what the timestamp *really*
means, and if it is not communicated with sufficient specificity,
things go poorly.

I make a point out of scheduling anything involving remote participants
on the UTC timescale, leaving up to them to figure out when to get
out of bed in their local realities.

My experience is that people react with surprise initially, but
that once you've "broken them in" and explained why you do it, there
are far fewer "oops I missed the time" incidents, in particular
around DST changes.


-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
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Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.