Webmaster forum - Daylight Savings Time

Author

Daylight Savings Time

GreyWyvern

2005-07-20, 9:01 pm

Hello all you happy people,

Have you ever threshed out a script or program that had to deal with
Daylight Savings Time (DST)? If so, you know it can get to be quite a
headache sometimes. Sometimes you think the whole system was dreamt up
just to gives computer programmers a rough time.

Thus it's not surprising that another monkey-wrench (or adjustible
spanner, if you prefer) is being prepared for getting thrown into the
works:

<http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/natio...ings050720.html>

The bill has passed both the House and the Senate and only needs to be
signed by Bush to become law. Aside from any "bloody Americans!"
responses, what do y'all think of this?

Grey

William Tasso

2005-07-20, 9:01 pm

Writing in news:alt.www.webmaster
From the safety of the GreyWyvern.com cafeteria
GreyWyvern <spam@greywyvern.com> said:

> Hello all you happy people,
>
> Have you ever threshed out a script or program that had to deal with
> Daylight Savings Time (DST)? If so, you know it can get to be quite a
> headache sometimes. Sometimes you think the whole system was dreamt up
> just to gives computer programmers a rough time.

Well yes of course, I did make that mistake a long time back - never again.

> Thus it's not surprising that another monkey-wrench (or adjustible
> spanner, if you prefer) is being prepared for getting thrown into the
> works:

Actually, I prefer a hammer if it's all the same to you.

http://www.estwing.com/images/leather_rip_english.jpg

> <http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/natio...ings050720.html>
>
> The bill has passed both the House and the Senate and only needs to be
> signed by Bush to become law. Aside from any "bloody Americans!"
> responses, what do y'all think of this?

Not sure it makes much difference in this modern 24/7 world.

What process are you trying to model which needs to know local time of day?

--
William Tasso

** Business as usual

Matt-the-Hoople

2005-07-20, 9:01 pm

after careful consideration, GreyWyvern wrote in alt.www.webmaster

> Hello all you happy people,
>
> Have you ever threshed out a script or program that had to deal with
> Daylight Savings Time (DST)? If so, you know it can get to be quite a
> headache sometimes. Sometimes you think the whole system was dreamt
> up just to gives computer programmers a rough time.
> The bill has passed both the House and the Senate and only needs to be
> signed by Bush to become law. Aside from any "bloody Americans!"
> responses, what do y'all think of this?

I suppose it doesn't matter to me, except that the thinking is screwy. Why don't they simply be done with it and leave the clocks
in a munged state perpetually?

This guy's brain is toast. I think he was exposed to too much nuc-u-lar radiation or something. I've seen dish rags with more
common sense.

--
Got lint?

Matt-the-Hoople

2005-07-20, 9:01 pm

after careful consideration, William Tasso wrote in alt.www.webmaster

>
> Not sure it makes much difference in this modern 24/7 world.
>
> What process are you trying to model which needs to know local time of
> day?
>

"Thank you for filing your tax return, however, you missed the deadline by 59 minutes and 30 seconds. Your bank account has
been charged an additional 17% late payment."

Regards,
Big Brother

--
Got lint?

2005-07-20, 9:01 pm

Mark Parnell

2005-07-20, 9:03 pm

Previously in alt.www.webmaster, GreyWyvern <spam@greywyvern.com> said:

> Hello all you happy people,

(all together) Hi Roy!

> <http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/natio...ings050720.html>

Don't know what the Canadians are worried about. We have the same
problem here, except all within the same country, and it goes all summer
- some states here don't the daylight savings thing at all. My wife's
uncle lives on the border between two states. He lives in one and works
in the other, so during summer he gets to work half an hour before he
leaves home. :-)

--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

Ken

2005-07-20, 11:32 pm

Hi Grey -

On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 09:39:01 -0400, GreyWyvern <spam@greywyvern.com>
wrote:

>The bill has passed both the House and the Senate and only needs to be
>signed by Bush to become law. Aside from any "bloody Americans!"
>responses, what do y'all think of this?

The House and Senate have passed different versions, so those have to
reconciled and each body has to pass an identical version before it
can be signed into law.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/w...time_gets_push/

--
Ken
http://www.ke9nr.net/

Jerry Stuckle

2005-07-22, 7:17 pm

GreyWyvern wrote:
> Hello all you happy people,
>
> Have you ever threshed out a script or program that had to deal with
> Daylight Savings Time (DST)? If so, you know it can get to be quite a
> headache sometimes. Sometimes you think the whole system was dreamt up
> just to gives computer programmers a rough time.
>
> Thus it's not surprising that another monkey-wrench (or adjustible
> spanner, if you prefer) is being prepared for getting thrown into the
> works:
>
> <http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/natio...ings050720.html>
>
>
> The bill has passed both the House and the Senate and only needs to be
> signed by Bush to become law. Aside from any "bloody Americans!"
> responses, what do y'all think of this?
>
> Grey

It's going to be a mess. Not only are the date/time libraries for most OS's
geared towards the current DST dates, there's a huge amount of firmware which
will need to be changed, also. Things like security/access systems (i.e. let
the person in between 7:30AM and 5:30PM M-F), the power grid (for predicting
loads - dinnertime is the worst) and a whole bunch of other things.

The fact some places don't change to DST is minor in comparison - most systems
have a "DST/No DST" option somewhere.

As for Matt and dp's comments - they did try going to year-round DST in the
70's. However, throughout much of the Midwest (especially in the western
portion of the time zones and rural areas), there were a huge number of school
kids who had to wait for the bus in total darkness during the short days. At
7:30AM it would still be pitch black out there and many were picked up between
6:30 and 7:30AM. It was changed back due to safety considerations.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

saz

2005-07-22, 7:18 pm

In article <Wvydnd4iEJHNpHzfRVn-pQ@comcast.com>, jstucklex@attglobal.net
says...
> GreyWyvern wrote:
>
> It's going to be a mess. Not only are the date/time libraries for most OS's
> geared towards the current DST dates, there's a huge amount of firmware which
> will need to be changed, also. Things like security/access systems (i.e. let
> the person in between 7:30AM and 5:30PM M-F), the power grid (for predicting
> loads - dinnertime is the worst) and a whole bunch of other things.
>
> The fact some places don't change to DST is minor in comparison - most systems
> have a "DST/No DST" option somewhere.
>
> As for Matt and dp's comments - they did try going to year-round DST in the
> 70's. However, throughout much of the Midwest (especially in the western
> portion of the time zones and rural areas), there were a huge number of school
> kids who had to wait for the bus in total darkness during the short days. At
> 7:30AM it would still be pitch black out there and many were picked up between
> 6:30 and 7:30AM. It was changed back due to safety considerations.
>
>
I was one of those kids in the 70's. Waiting for the bus to pick me up
at 7am to go to my high school in total darkness. It wasn't right then,
and it isn't right now. I don't want my High School daughter waiting
for a bus in the dark.

The rationale in the 70's was to conserve oil (which had jumped to a
whopping $20/barrel). Interestingly enough, studies done after we went
back to the normal DST showed that there were no discernable oil
consumption savings.

Matt-the-Hoople

2005-07-23, 7:15 pm

after careful consideration, saz wrote in alt.www.webmaster

>
> The rationale in the 70's was to conserve oil (which had jumped to a
> whopping $20/barrel). Interestingly enough, studies done after we went
> back to the normal DST showed that there were no discernable oil
> consumption savings.
>

I remember that - it was a Nixon administration thing. Waiting for the bus in the dark was not fun, but having lots of daylight
left when school got out was great (I had a newspaper delivery route).

Seems to me that the rest of the world manages well enough without DST. Switching gears twice every year is ... well, it's a lot
of things, unnecessary being one of them.

--
Got lint?

Arnie Goetchius

2005-07-27, 11:20 pm

Leonard Blaisdell

2005-07-28, 4:24 am

In article
<tzWFe.498544$cg1.184285@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
Arnie Goetchius <arnie.goetchius@att.net> wrote:

> It now appears that it won't take affect until 2007. If the Department
> of Energy can't find any savings, the bill as now written states that it
> won't go into affect at all. My guess is that we will never see it.

Of course, it depends on whether the bandwagon's wheels stay flat or are
pumped up by agendas. I saw on CSPAN the other day, an author that had
written a book on how ridiculous and arbitrary DST is, going back to
it's inception.
I also saw on the tube that it won't go into effect till 2007.

leo

--
<http://web0.greatbasin.net/~leo/

MGW

2005-07-28, 7:32 pm

On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 22:32:38 -0700, Leonard Blaisdell
<leo@greatbasin.com> scrawled:

>In article
><tzWFe.498544$cg1.184285@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
> Arnie Goetchius <arnie.goetchius@att.net> wrote:
>
>
>Of course, it depends on whether the bandwagon's wheels stay flat or are
>pumped up by agendas. I saw on CSPAN the other day, an author that had
>written a book on how ridiculous and arbitrary DST is, going back to
>it's inception.
>I also saw on the tube that it won't go into effect till 2007.

I think they should just compromise by move the clocks forward by
1/2-hour and leave it that way year round.
--

MGW