<story><title>Storing UTC is not a silver bullet</title><url>https://codeblog.jonskeet.uk/2019/03/27/storing-utc-is-not-a-silver-bullet/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>maxxxxx</author><text>I know. But I want no time zone. When I plan my Germany trip next week I want to see the 10 am meeting there at 10 regardless of where I am.&lt;p&gt;It should operate like a good old paper calendar.</text></item><item><author>nfriedly</author><text>Google Calendar does let you set the time zone in the &amp;#x27;More options&amp;#x27; view, FWIW. I use it occasionally.</text></item><item><author>maxxxxx</author><text>That’s what annoys me about google calendar and most others. When I schedule an appointment most of the times it will be for the time zone i will be in at the time of the appointment. So when I travel and agree to meet people at 10 I want to enter it that way. But in most calendar apps everything gets shifted around as soon as I arrive at the new location. I would much prefer to have apps not shift stuff around unless I explicitly tell the app to do it.</text></item><item><author>rlpb</author><text>This is the same as the alarm clock problem. When a user creates an event, what does that user _mean_? In the alarm clock example, what should happen if I&amp;#x27;ve set my alarm clock 7am and then travel to a different time zone? In the conference event example, what should happen if the local time zone rules change, or daylight savings time comes into force? Did the event organiser print marketing materials that said &amp;quot;starts at 1000 UTC&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;starts at 10am&amp;quot; with a &amp;quot;in the local time zone&amp;quot; implication?&lt;p&gt;Events generally need to be locked to _something_ - whether that is UTC or a local time zone depends on the application.&lt;p&gt;The iCalendar standard (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tools.ietf.org&amp;#x2F;html&amp;#x2F;rfc5545&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tools.ietf.org&amp;#x2F;html&amp;#x2F;rfc5545&lt;/a&gt;) generally gets this right.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>harpastum</author><text>Google Calendar is built around notifications and coordination, which both require an agreed upon &amp;quot;actual&amp;quot; time.&lt;p&gt;The feature set you&amp;#x27;re looking for sounds more like an &amp;quot;agenda&amp;quot; to me.</text></comment>
<story><title>Storing UTC is not a silver bullet</title><url>https://codeblog.jonskeet.uk/2019/03/27/storing-utc-is-not-a-silver-bullet/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>maxxxxx</author><text>I know. But I want no time zone. When I plan my Germany trip next week I want to see the 10 am meeting there at 10 regardless of where I am.&lt;p&gt;It should operate like a good old paper calendar.</text></item><item><author>nfriedly</author><text>Google Calendar does let you set the time zone in the &amp;#x27;More options&amp;#x27; view, FWIW. I use it occasionally.</text></item><item><author>maxxxxx</author><text>That’s what annoys me about google calendar and most others. When I schedule an appointment most of the times it will be for the time zone i will be in at the time of the appointment. So when I travel and agree to meet people at 10 I want to enter it that way. But in most calendar apps everything gets shifted around as soon as I arrive at the new location. I would much prefer to have apps not shift stuff around unless I explicitly tell the app to do it.</text></item><item><author>rlpb</author><text>This is the same as the alarm clock problem. When a user creates an event, what does that user _mean_? In the alarm clock example, what should happen if I&amp;#x27;ve set my alarm clock 7am and then travel to a different time zone? In the conference event example, what should happen if the local time zone rules change, or daylight savings time comes into force? Did the event organiser print marketing materials that said &amp;quot;starts at 1000 UTC&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;starts at 10am&amp;quot; with a &amp;quot;in the local time zone&amp;quot; implication?&lt;p&gt;Events generally need to be locked to _something_ - whether that is UTC or a local time zone depends on the application.&lt;p&gt;The iCalendar standard (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tools.ietf.org&amp;#x2F;html&amp;#x2F;rfc5545&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tools.ietf.org&amp;#x2F;html&amp;#x2F;rfc5545&lt;/a&gt;) generally gets this right.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jdblair</author><text>Its not that you want no time zone, you want to mark the appointment as &amp;quot;local&amp;quot; time. That could be useful, though I expect it would create as many problems as it solves.&lt;p&gt;The explicit timezone is crucial for conference calls that cross timezones. That is at least half of the appointments on my calendar (I coordinate projects between the US, Europe and Asia).</text></comment>