this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
335 points (98.0% liked)
Programmer Humor
32549 readers
499 users here now
Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)
Rules:
- Posts must be relevant to programming, programmers, or computer science.
- No NSFW content.
- Jokes must be in good taste. No hate speech, bigotry, etc.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The only time using UTC breaks down is when any sort of time change gets involved.
If I say I want a reminder at 9am six months from now and you store that as UTC, a day light savings change will mean I get my reminder an hour early or late depending on where in the world I am
But wouldn't you calculate the time in the future in the right time zone and then store it back as UTC?
It depends on the application.
I don't remember all the specifics but this is the blog post I refer to when this topic comes up
https://codeblog.jonskeet.uk/2019/03/27/storing-utc-is-not-a-silver-bullet/
So TL;DR: there might be unexpected time zone rule changes in the future. The solution presented in the article is to store both UTC and local time, so the application can easily adjust itself if such change happens.