Alan,

Thank you for the essay.  I’ve 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 at USMedRec.com 

________________________________________
From: squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org
[mailto:squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Alan
Lovejoy
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 2:10 AM
To: squeak-dev at 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