[whatwg] Re: input element types

[Jim Ley]

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 18:54:43 +0100, Malcolm Rowe
<malcolm-what at farside.org.uk> wrote:
> Jim Ley writes:
> > [datetime]
> > [...] we add a
> > dependance on the client knowing the UTC offset of the user I think
> > it's all rather over-specified and un-implementable.
> 
> In what possible situations would a UA not have access to the user's UTC
> offset? 

When their in a different timezone to the UA.  (remember it's _users_
who will be entering data in the form, not their UA's)

In anyway, remember it's not just the timezone that they need, but
also the summertime behaviour and the timezone of the location the
user is being prompted about.  Going back to the flight booking
example, look at all the pages on the web, and their all about local
pages.

The next problem is of course that this is meant to be a backwards
compatible specification that still works on legacy clients, without
script etc. there's no way we can do it.
 
> Compared to the effort required to implement a Web Forms 2.0 UA anyway, I
> really don't think that knowing the local UTC offset is a killer.

It wouldn't be no, but knowing summertime changes for everywhere in
the world I think would be.

Jim.