On 24/01/2023 09:44, Thomas S. Dye wrote:
Max Nikulin writes:
I believed that [2023-01-22 Sun 08:29@+1100] unambiguously suggests
offset from UTC.
Not for a casual programmer like me. The timestamp alone might easily be
read as 11 hours ahead of local time. Nevertheless, Org is certainly
free to interpret it as relative to UTC.
My primary concern is that I might be wrong assuming that format like
[2023-01-22 Sun 08:29@+1100] with offset in respect to UTC is reciprocal
identity mapping to UTC.
Of course there are a lot of people unaware of UTC. Org users may be
educated by the manual and by hints in UI pushing toward time fixed in
respect to UTC when "global" timestamp should be added. (In the sense of
e.g. Lunar eclipse or an on-line meeting, not to confuse with set of
events appointed on specific date but starting at the same local time in
each location).
I am afraid of confusion with repeater intervals, but syntax has not
fixed yet.
So we had different types of ambiguity in mind. Base time for offset was
unclear for you, I was writing about mapping to UTC. Your point should
be taken into account during consideration of storage format.
I still believe that something like [2023-01-21 Sat 21:29:00Z] and
[2023-01-22 Sun 08:29@+1100] may be used to store timestamps
interchangeably.
Are there local references that may confuse users? I mean something
like 9 hours
ahead of Moscow (Asia/Kamchatka) used in USSR.
I think 9 hours ahead of a timezone with a potentially variable offset
from UTC has the potential to sow confusion, yes.
If someone has examples of local time offsets (unrelated to UTC) widely
used in some area, please, post them.
MSK+3 style was not a real issue because daylight saving time was active
during the same period in the whole country and iron curtain was
efficiently isolating most of people form variety of DST rules in other
areas.
