datetime question

[Roy Smith]

In article <mailman.2377.1384177268.18130.python-list at python.org>,
 Joel Goldstick <joel.goldstick at gmail.com> wrote:

> Why not display UTC?  If it is so important to you to display local
> time, why do you think that your host's local time is something that
> is useful for a visitor?

In general, it makes sense to run servers (and log everything) in UTC, 
and display local time to your users.  The idea is to do the conversion 
(in both directions) as close to the user as possible (which, for a web 
application, means a little piece of javascript right in the browser).

It seems like extra work, but, trust me, it will preserve your sanity 
eventually.

We've got a data supplier who (for reasons I cannot fathom), runs their 
network in local time.  Every time we talk to them about problems, it's 
a mess just trying to figure out what time we're talking about.  We say, 
"we saw a latency spike at 2243 UTC, what caused that?", and then we 
play 20-questions trying to figure out if that's 1443 PDT, or 1543 PST, 
or who knows what.  Further complicated by them occasionally asking us 
off-the-wall questions like, "Is that UTC daylight savings time?"