from Hacker News

Date and Time in Java 8: Timezones

by rlmw on 12/21/12, 11:54 AM with 25 comments

• by codeka on 12/21/12, 12:22 PM

  This is so long overdue, but I feel like I've been using Joda Time for so long that the benefit of having it in the platform is kind of outweighed by the hassle of learning a new API.

• by aleyan on 12/21/12, 4:54 PM

  I wonder how this library deals with ambiguous times around daylight savings. For example on the day of switching from summertime to wintertime the clock goes from 2:59 am to 2:00 am again resulting in the hour being repeated. If you know the correct time zone for that timestamp, it is still ambiguous which of the two UTC times it maps to.

• by bnr on 12/21/12, 12:51 PM

  What's the use case for storing a time with timezone instead of just storing the UTC value?

• by RyanZAG on 12/21/12, 4:08 PM

  The real solution is to get timezones thrown out. All they do is waste the time of everyone involved and create complicated issues around travel, finance, computing, etc.

  They have no real benefit - if you want to come into work later in winter because it's dark where you live then just come in later! Changing time to suite this madness is insane, broken, and requires immediate fixes.

  If we could get all the OS markets/net service providers to agree to a boycott, then nobody would even notice DST is gone as they just get their time from their phone/computer/radio/etc anyway.

  I'll get the pitchforks and we can get this started. Anybody with me?! :)

• by bjhoops1 on 12/21/12, 4:05 PM

  I cringe every time I hear "Date" and "Java" in the same sentence.