On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 6:50 PM, Sheeri K. Cabral <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 8/27/08, Jay Pipes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> Couldn't agree more. TZ belongs in the application layer, which knows >> best about conversions and locales. UTC in the DB is the way to go IMHO. > > OK, only one thing -- it's not that UTC is stored in the db, it's that there > is no timezone information stored along with the datetime in the db, and the > *assumed* timezone is UTC. > > I bring this nitpicky point up because it's all relevent to how NOW() and > SYSDATE() and CURRENT_DATE() and CURRENT_TIME() and other date/timestamp > stuff works. > > Do we trust 100% that the user/application will do the right thing? Or do > we accept timezones and issue an error if the timezone isn't UTC? Or a > warning, that we're doing an implicit conversion (usually bad to do this > type of thing)? > > If we say "no timezones no how no way no chance" then we trust 100% that the > user/application does the right thing, and if they just hardcode what the > app code says is "now" into a query, then you still have the problem that > people are *storing* in their timezone, complete with daylight savings time, > etc. > > -Sheeri >
One of the reason for complaining against MySQL shortcomings was that the implementation of many features did not take user needs into account. The implementation makes perfect sense to the developers, but the users are not considered at all. Let's not repeat the same mistakes with Drizzle! Timestamps with time zone information are quite common (blog XML feeds, web server logs), and the user must have a way of inserting that information without need to write an application. Think about this: I have some data to insert, and an application that does not know about TZ. If the database recognizes TZ extensions, I just feed the data in. If it doesn't I need to code (or pay someone to code) a change. What is our purpose? To end up in a textbook as the purest example of date time implementation or to create a database that common people would really want to use? I'd say that adding (non compulsory) TZ information to the datetime field is going to be good for users. Giuseppe -- The Data Charmer http://datacharmer.org/ _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~drizzle-discuss Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~drizzle-discuss More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
