I don’t see how your way is any more predictable or consistent than using UTC. What even is “local time”? Are you assuming they haven’t changed timezone since they created the data? Say…DST happened, or they drove over a border…?
Storing and manipulating in UTC is the most predictable and consistent because it is universal and unchanging. You only need to worry about “local time” at the point of displaying it.
We have slackbots that post, for instance, who has vecation every day. Because it is configured to post this using UTC, the time of day this is posted changes twice a year.
I might have a recurring appointment for lunch in my calendar every day at noon. Now DST happened, so I have to wait until one to eat. That is inconsistent to me.
Timezones change. If I have to go to the theatre on half a year at 18:00, I don’t want to be there at 19:00 because someone decided local time would be better if we moved it an hour. The show time certainly won’t be moved.
What is local time? It’s spacetime. When did it happen and if relevant (eg. a photo) what was the offset (because I would like to know the time of day)? When will it happen, and where? Online meetings across timezones are tricky, of course, but excluding the timezone won’t improve that.
Notice the common problem here? DST. Get rid of it and you get rid of the inconsistency that happens parts of the year, and you reduce fatality rates that resulted from moving time twice a year.
Yes. Not intentionally of course. But yes.
I don’t see how your way is any more predictable or consistent than using UTC. What even is “local time”? Are you assuming they haven’t changed timezone since they created the data? Say…DST happened, or they drove over a border…?
Storing and manipulating in UTC is the most predictable and consistent because it is universal and unchanging. You only need to worry about “local time” at the point of displaying it.
We have slackbots that post, for instance, who has vecation every day. Because it is configured to post this using UTC, the time of day this is posted changes twice a year.
I might have a recurring appointment for lunch in my calendar every day at noon. Now DST happened, so I have to wait until one to eat. That is inconsistent to me.
Timezones change. If I have to go to the theatre on half a year at 18:00, I don’t want to be there at 19:00 because someone decided local time would be better if we moved it an hour. The show time certainly won’t be moved.
What is local time? It’s spacetime. When did it happen and if relevant (eg. a photo) what was the offset (because I would like to know the time of day)? When will it happen, and where? Online meetings across timezones are tricky, of course, but excluding the timezone won’t improve that.
Notice the common problem here? DST. Get rid of it and you get rid of the inconsistency that happens parts of the year, and you reduce fatality rates that resulted from moving time twice a year.