Re: [DotGNU]Reminder - Weekly DotGNU Meeting

[DrDiettrich]

Rich Baumann wrote:
> It's not my fault if you're using a broken operating system.

Start an flame war? ;-)

Who are you that you can dictate which OS everybody else has to use?

> Since the
> date command is, as far as I know, a part of the Portable Operating
> System Interface standard, you should complain to your OS vendor if your
> OS doesn't have it.

I don't know whether my system has such a command, and I felt happy
without it for more than 30 years.

> If you're using windows, you can install cygwin
> (cygwin.com), which supplies many of the core missing (broken) parts of
> your OS, after which you can install the GNU coreutils package
> (gnu.org/software/coreutils) which contains the date program.

This is just a topic which I would like to discuss, but not restricted
to the date command. See my parallel mail about the make process of GNU
software...

If I ever wanted to use Unix, then I would use it, but in fact I want to
use a different OS, which follows different standards. Every criticism
on that decision is arrogant and futile.

> Alternatively, you can check the "world clock" at timeanddate.com
> (scroll down to find UTC).

I also don't want to be connected to the Web all the time, because I
cannot afford such luxury.

> UTC is the international time standard; GMT is not.

Both are international standards.

> That's why there's no "date -g" option.

I hate such broken tools ;-)

> UTC has no daylight savings adjustments, so you can
> do the calculation yourself, based on current GMT (which does have such
> adjustments). The only difference between the two IS daylight savings
> adjustments.

Finally a serious point. I understand the advantage of a time base,
which is independent from daylight saving shifts.

But I don't understand why such a long comment on UTC is posted with
every meeting time, telling the user which tool how to use for time
conversion. Plus another lengthy comment about how to make this tool
available on non-Unix platforms. Aren't we humans alltogether, which can
and prefer to perform such simple calculations even without computer
assistance? Herefore a description of tools is absolutely inappropriate,
whereas the last sentence of your reply contains all required
information:

"The difference between UTC and GMT is daylight savings adjustments."

Peace? ;-)

DoDi