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Zach Holman is a developer living in San Francisco. He joined GitHub in 2010 as one of their first engineering hires, and helped build and grow their product and culture over five years. Currently he’s the founder and CEO of During, a new calendar to help you during your day. He also advises startups, including GitLab and Dockbit.
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In the talk titled "UTC is Enough for Everybody, Right?" presented by Zach Holman at Balkan Ruby 2018, the complexities of time management in software development are explored, particularly focusing on the importance of understanding date and time systems. Holman, a developer with extensive experience from his time at GitHub and now the CEO of During, discusses how time, despite being a ubiquitous concept in programming, presents significant challenges when applied to the real world. ### Key Points Discussed: - **Understanding Time:** - Time is a complex construct not only understood through physics but also through its social and political implications, especially for programmers dealing with global systems. - **Historical Perspective:** - The evolution of time measurement from early astronomical clocks to modern atomic clocks is outlined. This history illustrates how timekeeping has transitioned from vague concepts to precise standards. - **The Time Zone Challenge:** - The talk emphasizes the difficulties posed by time zones, which arose notably with the advent of the railroad industry. Time zones are not just one-hour increments, leading to complications in programming when different regions observe different rules. - **Programming Challenges with Time:** - Holman presents the idea that developers should primarily use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) for storing timestamps to avoid complications. He stresses that UTC differs from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in several respects, particularly concerning daylight savings time. - **User Interactions with Time Data:** - There is a focus on the significance of presenting time data clearly to users through standardized formats (like ISO 8601) and allowing user customization in terms of date and time formatting preferences. - **Examples Illustrating Misunderstandings About Time:** - Anecdotes such as Samoa's decision to skip a day to synchronize with trading partners demonstrate the real-world implications of time measurement and coordination. - The controversial switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in Russia exemplifies the tremendous confusion and logistical issues surrounding time discrepancies in global contexts. ### Conclusions and Takeaways: - The overarching message is that time management is critical yet fraught with complexities in programming. Developers are urged to utilize UTC for uniformity and standardization. - Holman encourages programmers to be aware of historical and practical considerations when creating applications that involve time management. He concludes by suggesting that while building a calendar is an interesting challenge, it's advisable to approach it with caution, simplifying wherever possible to reduce potential confusion.
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