the Gravity of Python 2

[Chris Angelico]

On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 1:06 AM, Piet van Oostrum <piet at vanoostrum.org> wrote:
> Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 2:34 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
>>> With time zones, as with text encodings, there is a single technically
>>> elegant solution (for text: Unicode; for time zones: twelve simple,
>>> static zones that never change)
>>
>> Twelve or twenty-four? Or are you thinking we should all be an even
>> number of hours away from UTC, which would also work?
>
> Even 24 doesn't take into account DST.

That was the point. We can abolish codepages by using Unicode, which
covers everything. We could abolish time messes by having every
locality settle permanently on one timezone; Ben's theory demands that
all timezones be some integer number of hours +/- UTC, which IMO is
optional, but mainly it should be easy to figure out any two
locations' difference: just subtract one's UTC offset from the
other's. Similarly, you can calculate the difference between two times
at the same location by simple subtraction; currently, you also have
to consider the possibility of a DST switch (from noon to noon across
a switch is either 23 or 25 hours).

Actually, the nearest parallel to Unicode is probably "use UTC
everywhere", which makes for a superb internal representation and
transmission format, but bugs most human beings :)

ChrisA