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0 pointskccqzy1y ago0 comments

I would start by arguing that not every website needs to deal with dates and times on the client side. And furthermore, if a website only needs to deal with dates but not times (surprisingly common) it can be done in a few KB of JavaScript—the Gregorian calendar is easy compared to the mess of ever-changing time zones and leap seconds.

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syncsynchalt1y ago

I'd argue the opposite: APIs should publish all datetimes as UTC timestamps and only the client should be involved in presenting datetimes in the way best suited to the user experience.

I'd also argue that presenting dates in ~0KB of javascript is better and less error-prone than several KB of javascript - it also allows users to see dates in non-Gregorian calendars when they prefer.

kccqzyOP1y ago

I'm afraid you have missed the point. My point is that most of the time you don't need datetimes. You only need dates.

Think about sites like blogs. The user only needs to know on what date a blogpost is published. Likewise for newspapers: we have hundreds of years of paper newspapers where people know on what date an article is published but not at what time. Think about banks. My bank tells me the date of a transaction, not its time. Likewise for brokerages.

burntsushi1y ago

My brokerage gives me the date, time and time zone! From my most recent transation:

    01/31/2025 11:35:11 AM.,EST

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