Can Walter stop living in the future? (meta)

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Thursday, May 16, 2019 10:43:55 PM MDT Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) via 
Digitalmars-d wrote:
> But you bring up the idea of a user setting an alarm...and that raises
> an interesting wrinkle...As I see it, the problem here stems from the
> fact that there are potentially *TWO* different perspectives (ie "time
> zones") involved: (keeping in mind that "time zone" can also refer to
> daylight-savings status)
>
> Perspective A: The time zone (or daylight-savings status) of the user
> when they set the alarm.
>
> Perspective B: The time zone (or daylight-savings status) of the user
> when the alarm sounds.
>
> (Note that this is NOT an "absolute vs relative" distinction, but a
> distinction between two different relative perspectives: Kind of like
> "~" vs "." in filepaths.)
>
> Since all user-input involving time should naturally be considered to be
> relative to the user's own perspective (unless the user specifically
> states otherwise), this creates a dilemma because there are *two* user
> perspectives: Is the user entering a time relative to their current
> perspective ("time zone") of time? (Ie, "A"). Or are they entering a
> time relative to their own future self *at the moment of the alarm*?
> (ie, "B").

A similar though subtly different use case is putting an appointment in your
calendar when you're currently in a different time zone than the appointment
will be. And the fact that we now carry devices in our pockets that get used
for stuff like this makes it far more likely that stuff like this will come
up - though it can happen without you even moving time zones. For instance,
at a previous job, we were supposed to mark in Outlook when we were taking
PTO, and I was in a different time zone from my eomployer. And since Outlook
treated makring a day as marking a specific 24 hour period, I'd mark a day
on the West Coast and end up with it showing something like 03:00 - 02:59
when folks looked at it on the East Coast. And if you didn't look at the
exact times when looking at it on the calendar, I think that it managed to
make it look I was taking two days off instead of one.

Coming up with a way to deal with stuff like this in a way that doesn't run
afoul of time zone problems can be really hard - especially since people
don't tend to think about these things the same way computers do. The
absolute vs relative path analogy is an interesting one though.

- Jonathan M Davis