ANSI C. (Really Daylight Savings Time)

[zben at umd5.UUCP]

In article <468 at graffiti.UUCP> peter at graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
In article ? ? writes:  [z]
>> I think the concept of DST is stupid, but so long as
>> it has to be dealt with, some means must be provided.
>
>Perhaps, perhaps, but it'd be better to leave that up to the application
>instead of stuffing the library or forcing some PC user to create a file
>at certain times of the year just to run some program that happens to be
>written in 'C'.   ...

Watch out people!  The latest proposal in Congress to keep elections from
being decided before the West Coast gets its chance to vote involves a bad
change to Daylight Savings Time!

As I read it in the Post yesterday, the proposal is to make the polling
places close at 7:00 EST, 8:00 CST, and extend Daylight Savings Time for the
West Coast two more weeks till election day!

The idea of changing the DST algorithm for a) West Coast sites only, and
b) only in an election year doesn't really turn me on AT ALL...  I think this
is a powerful argument for hiding the kluges in either a library routine or
the system.  Somewhere it can be setup when the system is configured, and not
have to be replicated in hundreds of programs.  If it is in the system, one
would not have to rebuild programs sent from elsewhere, while if it is in the
library one would at least have to re-link-edit.

Let's keep our eyes on this particular snake - it just might bite us all
someday...
-- 
Ben Cranston  ...{seismo!umcp-cs,ihnp4!rlgvax}!cvl!umd5!zben  zben at umd2.ARPA