Re: Odd timezone backend output

On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 09:58:09PM -0400, Andrew Chernow wrote:

> The more I think about it, I personally like the display behavior of NTFS
> file times over something like EXT3. When I am in EDT, it is useful to
> have all display times in that zone (regardless of whether that time falls
> within winter or summer) ... just as they would if I switched to PST.

There's a difference between the two cases you're thinking of, though.

In the case of "you being in EDT", you didn't actually switch time
zone. In Eastern time zones, the offset is -05 from UTC for part of
the year, and -04 from UTC from part of the year. That's what it
_means_ to be in Eastern time: you didn't really switch time zone at
all. I'm in America/Toronto in January and in June. My display
should show the time correct to my time zone, not according to the
offset from UTC. If you really want that, change your time zone to be
an offset from UTC rather than a particular zone. (We used to have to
differentiate between EST and EDT during the summer months, because
Indiana didn't switch. As far as I know, there is no longer a single
jurisdiction where the summer time change doesn't happen in Eastern
time. If not for historical reasons, I'd argue the name should be
changed to Eastern time.)

If you switch to Pacific time (and why is it that people say "EDT" but
"PST"? I don't know of any Pacific time jurisdictions that don't
switch, either. Arizona doesn't switch mostly, but they're in
Mountain time), the same thing happens.

A

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Andrew Sullivan
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