RE: $DateZone: (ZONE)$

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Tuesday, June 19, 2001 at 12:22:59 (+0900), KOIE Hidetaka 
(=?iso-2022-jp?B?GyRCOHE5PjFRTjQbKEI=?=) wrote: ]
> Subject: RE: $DateZone: (ZONE)$
>
> If most user will be in single timezone,
> it is natural that format of date is in the timezone.

It may be natural, but it is not reasonable in the context of a tool
designed to be used transparently around the world.

I understand the desire -- I just wish to impress upon you the need to
resist it and to instead learn to use the more portable standard time
thats not location specific.

> For example, Japanese teritory is smal, there is one timezone.
> Commercial user in non-global company desires
> date format is local timezone.

It's not uncommon for formerly small and regionalised companies to
suddenly have the need for dealing with international circumstances.  It
does not seem wise to limit one's self to regional representations even
if the potential for international interaction seems impossible at the
present time.

Even in a large country with many timezones, such as Canada, it's often
quite common for people to ignore the needs of those who deal in many
regions.  Indeed it seems people in general have great difficulty
looking beyond their most closely encompassing boundaries.

All I can say is that it seems inevitable to me that eventually somone
in some other part of the world will un-doubt-ably want to compare the
timestamps in your files and so it only seems fair to use UTC across the
board so as to ensure future compatability.

> Sometimes I read info-cvs, this request looks like FAQ.
> (And this request has occured in japanese mailing list.)

I agree this issue of timezones is definitely a FAQ.  Many years ago I
once asked very similar questions in this very forum!  ;-)

> From a different aspect:
> Often, by OS setting, `ls' or `dir' will outputs with local timezone.

Of course -- this is because the output of such programs is usually
considered to be very dynamic and can be changed on demand.

What you are proposing for CVS though has much more likelyhood of
freezing the timezone into a file and thus is not usually very dynamic.

-- 
                                                        Greg A. Woods

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