From: Urabe Shyouhei <shyouhei@...>
Date: 2009-03-22T14:14:15+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:22987] Re: Ruby Time

valodzka wrote:
>> I bet you'll get tired of updating that database.  There's a major difference
>> between "You can do" and "You actually do".
> If I solved this problem, I would write a script which checks server
> ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub daily and updates gem if necessary and
> configure cron to run it daily. That's all.

No, that's not all.  You then have to beg every single website on this planet
installing ruby to update your library, every time that script runs.

>> What's that main problem?
> 1) Offset in time is useless without  tz database. Usually you want to
> get time in particular place, not with particular offset.

Your library cannot generate a time object representing
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:30:00 EDT

irb(main):001:0> require 'time2'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> TimeZone.local "America/New_York"
=> #<TimeZone: Japan>
irb(main):003:0> Time.local(2009, 11, 1, 1, 30, 0)
=> 2009-11-01 01:30:00 -0400

Isn't it incomplete to say you can "get time in particular place" because we
actually experience 1:30 in EDT? A time-with-offset strategy can handle this I
believe.

> 2) Time, except small range, remains unportable between different
> platforms.

That's unavoidable.  Time is, or at least has an aspect of, an interface
between ruby and a platform.

PS: I cannot compile your library without modifications.