Can We Get Rid of Time Zones Already?
#work 2 min.
Both USA and EU are trying to kill daylight saving time. That’s a move in the right direction, but we should not stop at that.
We should get rid of time zones altogether. It’s a stupid solution to a stupid problem. A perfect example of a real-world technical debt.
Oh, but how bad can it be? There are only like 24 time zones in total, right? Right?!
I can’t even begin to describe the amount of work required to deal with multiple layers of complexity around time zones. If we redirected all the collective effort to something actually productive, we’d probably have cold fusion or at least a colony on Mars by now.
And all that effort spent on what? Would you really mind if the clock showed 00:00 or 08:00 or 16:00 when you show up for work? Who the hell cares?
It’s all arbitrary anyway. Where I live, the sun sets at ~17:00 in winter and ~22:00 in summer. We deal with that just fine.
But here’s a practical example: you have a flight from Istanbul to Tokyo. You leave at 20:00, you arrive at 8:00. Question - how long did the flight take?
Without time zones, my 6-year-old nephew could calculate it on his fingers.
With time zones, I don’t even know where to begin. I guess I’ll have to google it.
Let’s end this madness.
Sincerely,
every programmer in the world.