this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Europe

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[–] Mniot@programming.dev 40 points 2 months ago (6 children)

As a programmer, DST creates tons of bugs for anything using time and is annoying. But whatever, I guess I get paid either way.

As a parent, DST is miserable. It's miserable as an adult, also, but multiplied misery when you have to get up early to ruin your kid's sleep. And then that night they're not ready to suddenly go to sleep an hour early so you lose an extra hour...

I hope Poland succeeds.

[–] samuelazers@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

the act of changing clocks twice a year is profoundly fucked up to people’s circadian rhythms .

as well as the government deciding for you, what time it is, is kind of orwellian when i think about it.

i want my body to adapt naturally to the sync of the sun, i think we all could use a little bit more nature.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

As a programmer, I would never put anything except UTC or Unix time into a computer program or database. The front end can show the user whatever localized bullshit they want to see.

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 6 points 2 months ago

But if you consume data from something not in utc and need to get it there, there is still room for bugs.

I changed our systems a previous job to store all in utc and got made to put it back to jst (Japan). That was .... Fun

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[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Every year when the clocks change people are cranky and start demanding this kind of thing be eliminated. Politicians capitalize on it and say they will do something about it. In a couple of weeks everyone forgets about it.

In the end, the government can't do anything about the tilt of the Earth and there is no time system that can be devised that will make everyone happy. Many people like having more light in the evening and wouldn't be happy if DST were eliminated. People are going to be cranky for a couple of weeks in the year but it's generally considered worth putting up with so people have more daylight in the evening rather than having it before they wake up.

[–] Untrending@feddit.org 4 points 2 months ago

We can get rid of DST while keeping that extra hour if we default to summer time, not winter. DST statistically causes many accidents twice a year, because our brains aren't ready / thrown off their rhythm, so making away with it would have a positive impact outside of not being cranky anymore

[–] KumaSudosa@feddit.dk 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Programmer as well and fuck that shit.

My cats are used to a very specific schedule.. now they're gonna wake me up 1 hour early for the next many weeks. Great!

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[–] rice@lemmy.org 3 points 2 months ago

Yea people don't realize there are several different start/ends to it all over the world, not just 1 "everyone change it" and tons of special cases too. Terrible

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[–] aleq@lemmy.world 36 points 2 months ago (12 children)

Everyone wants this and it's taking decades....

[–] crimeschneck@feddit.nl 6 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Sure, but then the question is: Winter time or summer time?

I'm not sure if the European people are equally united in this question.

[–] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (18 children)

Summer time. Every time. I'd rather it not be pitch black at 4pm where I am. I'd rather take the extra bit of darkness in the morning.

I also love it being 9pm in June and still having near full daylight ❀️

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[–] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Science says winter. If you want to wake up earlier to compensate you can just do that.

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[–] late_night@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think we should stop calling it winter and summer time because it's swaying people wrong. Because of course we hate short, dark and cold days and we love long, warm, bright evenings. We love the summer, therefore if we choose summer time it feels like it'll be summer all year long.

But the reality is that (at least where I live) winter time is closer to the sun time and would be preferable in all aspects.

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I think people who prefer summer time do so because it causes the sun to set later. Most people start work in the morning and work inside. They are free to enjoy the sun late in the afternoon, so it means more sun to be enjoyed. The same goes for school children - winter in many countries means going from school after it gets dark, so outdoor activities are limited. Summer time makes it all 1 hour better.

[–] troglodyte_mignon@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

In France, normal time is UTC+1 (CET), and summer time is UTC+2 (CEST), when we actually belong in UTC+0 (and were, before being occupied by Germany). Permanently switching to the so-called "summer time" makes no sense if you’ve ever seen a map of time zones.

And by the way Spain is in the same situation. Spain, which is more western than Greenwich, is going to change time with us this night and we’re both going to spend six months in Egypt and Finland’s normal time zone. That is so wrong.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

12 is at suns zenith, done.

If we want to adjust our working hours, we can do that, no need to change the clock itself.

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Yep, people have very strict opinions on this. All sides are like - it's simple, no need for discussions, just do it the way I see it. The possibility of not changing the time twice a year is not enough for most people to be ok with ending up with a time system they don't like. The emotions are too intensive. That's why previous attempts failed and we're stuck with this nonsense.

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[–] perslue@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Split the difference and move forward or backward by 30 minutes only to insure that absolutely no one is ever happy.

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 months ago

I'd be happy. I didn't care which offset is used as long as we stick to it.

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I don't know if many people share my opinion, but I literally don't care one bit. Let's all do UTC across the world, the US needs to be taken down a peg anyway.

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[–] Podunk@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Split the difference. Done.

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[–] randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Instead of DST, why didn't we just shift working hours one hour earlier in winter? (I am in favor of getting rid of DST. I'm just asking why we decided to shift the clock instead of shifting working hours)

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Changing working hours would be decided by individual businesses and inconsistencies on this would be a logistical nightmare. Delivery of materials are suddenly an hour later and you have a bunch of people standing around with nothing to do. Or maybe it's earlier than usual and it comes before your business is open.

Signage about business hours would have to be changed twice per year. A customer not aware of the change in business hours may show up too early or two late.

And it would be an insane amount of work to change all the schedules of automated systems to conform with business hour changes that happen twice per year.

So to avoid these kinds of problems you need the entire society to change their schedules consistently. It's easier to change the clocks than to change everything other than the clocks.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And yet, flex hours somehow exist anyway. It depends on the job.

Thats a whole different set of expectations though

[–] Natanael@infosec.pub 4 points 2 months ago

Seasonal opening hours are not something new.

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[–] watsym@lemm.ee 15 points 2 months ago

DST seems to be such a mess. We should start doing it state by state if EU doesn't want to do it all at the same time. Poland should lead the way and be the first

[–] simon574@feddit.org 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I had such high hopes back in 2018, I think France was pushing for it. Now 7 years later with still no progress I think the best bet is to move to China, India, Russia or Hawaii, or any African country except Egypt. Or South America except Chile. You see the overwhelming majority of people in the world don't have the DST bullshit.

[–] luciferofastora@feddit.org 7 points 2 months ago

India? You mean the "+05:30" timezone? I'd rather not deal with that :30 tbh. I like having my timezone arithmetics quite simple, just adding and subtracting hours. A half hour offset is worse to me than having to switch which offsets to use when. (Still better than Australia Central Western with its +08:45, but that's a low bar to clear.)

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I we were in true democracies that thing would have been scrapped long ago. Not a single person like it or see any actual purpose on it.

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

That's true, no-one likes it. But the attempts to end it got stuck on democracy, unfortunately. People were inable to get behind one solution. Some countries prefered to keep the natural time, some wanted the summer time. There are reasons for both approaches and lots and lots of emotions. It was unreasonable to let different EU countries addopt different time systems, so the whole idea to get rid of the time changes was scrapped.

[–] fikniefnadjofullinn@feddit.is 2 points 2 months ago

Weirdly, I've heard people here in Iceland (where we never had DST) who want to adopt it. It never made sense to me. If we want to shift our day around the sun, let's just agree as a society to shift business opening hours during the summer.

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[–] shaserlark@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago

Last time there was a vote and most people wanted to remain in DST permanently. Somehow then the whole thing just died out. I don’t think it’s ever gonna happen

[–] HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (13 children)

Let's hope they keep the summer time

Edit: I meant all year round. I hate that it gets dark so soon in the winter

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[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 3 points 2 months ago

Living in eastern Japan for a decade, I don't miss changing the clocks and the misery around that time. I do wish east Japan would move by an hour, though; before 4am sunrises (getting light from 3-something) and dark before 5pm in the winter sucks.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I call bullshit. they've gotten rid of daylight savings and the 12-hour clock in most of Asia, but it'll never happen in Europe. democracy doesn't work like that. bullshit

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[–] RedSnt@feddit.dk 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (23 children)

YES! Get rid of that dumb shit!
Not sure what programmers have to say about this though. Ideally DST would've been scrapped like 30 years ago back when there were a lot fewer people using computers, so a lot of code wouldn't need updating as soon as such a change is implemented, but waiting will only worsen it.
I think keeping summertime is the better option. Having a bit of sunlight when you come home from school or work in winter would be priceless. Even if it means darker mornings.

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