Alan,
Thank you for the essay. Ive had to deal extensively with this problem. We developed a system that distributed drugs to thousands of people, and having a system that was accurate to the second was an essential requirement. The hardest part of this problem was the time zone issues, but what was also difficult was determining from the application which time calculations were durations, and which were calendar based. This is really not that easy especially in pharmacy applications. As an example: A nursing home gives its morning meds every day at 9am. When DST comes around they still want to give their meds at 9am. But some meds are given every 4 hours. Imagine getting your pain med 1 hour later or 1 hour earlier!
It makes time problems very interesting!
Ron Teitelbaum Ron@USMedRec.com
________________________________________ From: squeak-dev-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Alan Lovejoy Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 2:10 AM To: squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org Subject: Discovering the Local Time Zone--Why It's a Hard Problem
I have posted an essay on the matter of discovering the host system's time zone, so that either the VisualWorks or Squeak VM and/or image might be able synchronize with it. The essay is entitled "Discovering the Local Time Zone--Why It's a Hard Problem."
The essay can be viewed at the following link: http://www.chronos-st.org/Discovering%20the%20Local%20Time%20Zone--Why%20It' s%20a%20Hard%20Problem.html. I thought this subject might be of some interest to the Squeak community. --Alan
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