While I like DST

11 Mar 2013 • leancrew.com

The set of rules for calendars, time zones, and clock changes is exactly the sort of thing computers should be good at handling for us, but because of programmer arrogance and incompetence, we end up with problems that shouldn’t exist. In the past few years we’ve had Zunes that wouldn’t boot,Playstations that wouldn’t play, and iPhone alarms that wouldn’t alarm (againand again and again).

Can I say for the record that I hate timezones? Completely agree with his main point [computers should handle this super well], but also really think this is more of a library concern.  Not every programmer needs to understand the intricacies of low-level email parsing to write great software that sends and receives emails.  Likewise, someone should be able to write great calendar and alarm software without a low-level understanding of timezones, DST, etc.

Is that point of view arrogance or common sense?