Daylight Savings Time changes in US - will it impact you?

student4ever · 02-12-2007, 01:40 PM

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/daylight1.html

If anybody around here is like me, you didn't even realize this was about to happen. When DST starts and ends in the US officially changes this year to extend DST by about a month total. The question becomes, will this have any impact on any of your web or other applications that you use? It is likely worth checking with your vendors to find out. It's a little thing, but a lot of people like to see the proper timestamps when they are on your pages.

The types of applications I can think of right off the top that 'could' be impacted are forums, blogs or just about anything that allows people to sign up for an account to allow posting and asks for their timezone information in an effort to show the correct time when they, or others posted something. Decent chance that there are other types of apps that rely on this data as well.

If this is something that may be of concern to you, you've got just under a month to figure it out. The new version of DST starts March 11th.

scottb · 02-12-2007, 01:48 PM

Most forums built recently have the option to compensate for DST at sign up.

student4ever · 02-12-2007, 02:12 PM

I'm getting such a feeling of deja vou...

any idea of what is being used to calculate DST in say Joomla? Up until now, it's been first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. Now, it will be the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. Are they ready for this small change?

I know it's only a small thing for most applications, but I also know that when there is a timestamp that is off somewhere on a site, it's normally a user that is the one to let me know about it...

scottb · 02-12-2007, 04:09 PM

I posted at some of the Joomla and various BB boards and received no definite answer to the question.

At SMF, the answer was the board gets its time from the server. If the server is correct, the board will be correct. That doesn't make sense at all.

Evil Chris · 02-12-2007, 04:17 PM

I like DST. It's great to have the sun still shining at 9pm at night.
And if you go further north, you get it until like 11pm.

TheLegacy · 02-12-2007, 04:32 PM

I am in Canada - like 2257 - american day light savings doesn't affect us

student4ever · 02-12-2007, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottb

At SMF, the answer was the board gets its time from the server. If the server is correct, the board will be correct. That doesn't make sense at all.

actually, I think that is the correct answer - after doing a little research (at least in the PHP world), it looks like all the PHP time information comes directly from the OS, so the server is in charge of that information. If the server is correct in how it determines DST information, then any PHP app using PHP built in functions to get to that information should be correct as well.