Reply #31: If all programs and operating systems have been written well, that is

[muriel_volestrangler]

During the 90s, I worked with some middleware that coordinated clocks on distributed computers ('DCE', for those who want to know). European daylight savings time normally changes on a different weekend from American. When we were testing, the systems stopped working completely during the week in between. The only option was to set all the connected computers to an American time zone - which wouldn't be acceptable in a live system. Someone had, somewhere deep in the code, hard-programmed the American change dates. And if one program has been written well, and another hasn't, you may get real problems. This kind of thing does need testing, and enough notice to get patches for everthing involved.