Re: 2822upd-04 "local" time and zone offsets

Ned wrote:

> not all systems run their clocks in UTC. (In fact the machine I'm 
> using right now to enter this message uses a local time clock.

Same here.  I know the issue, in a httpd-script it forced me to
use HTTP/1.0 and -0000, because HTTP/1.1 does not permit stupid
servers.  Just knowing that it's "local time" isn't the same as
knowing the correct timezone.

  [2359 vs. 9959]
>> You could limit it to say 23 hours.  With that the syntax
>> would more obviously indicate that it's actually about hh:mm
>> and not 9999 minutes.
 
> Again I'm with Pete - I see no reason for such a restriction.

It could help casual future readers, as you described them here:

| In most cases it isn't possible to communicate with the 
| responsible parties so there's no way to know why they did it.
| But when it is and they open their mouths to respond what
| usually emerges is a loud sucking sound resulting from the
| total vacuum of salient information between their ears.

| It is nothing short of stunning how many people think they
| know how to implement a protocol (the specific protocol is
| irrelevant) just from a cursory examination of example protocol
| exchanges from some random book they flipped through one day at
| a local bookstore. And no amount of added prose, or more precise
| ABNF, or anything else we do is going to change this. In fact by
| making our specifications longer we if anything make the problem
| slightly worse, not better.

Maybe they would get the idea of 2359.  Or maybe not :-)

 Frank