[Python-Dev] proposal: add basic time type to the standard library

[Guido van Rossum]

> Guido van Rossum writes:
>  > 10pm EST has a different feel to it than one sent at 4am MET.  It
>  > should *sort* on UTC, but it should use the original timezone to
>  > display the dates.

[Fred]
> Sounds like a user preference, not a universal truth.

Fair enough.  Even some of my well-traveled friends cannot do timezone
arithmetic in their head... :-)

> Is it important that the timezone is part of the date/time type,
> though?  Is it important that it be part of the abstract base
> date/time?
> 
> Specific implementations should certainly be able to add support for
> timezones, and perhaps some hypothetical default date/time type should
> include it for convenience, but that doesn't tell me it's fundamental.

I guess I want it to be possible to have an implementation that keeps
track of the timezone as entered.

It's true that time deltas are a nightmare when dealing with different
timezones.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)