How Badly Do We Want a New Java Date/Time API?

http://java.dzone.com/articles/how-badly-do-we-want-new-java

by friendlytuna • 14 years ago

37 10 14 years ago

java.dzone.com

brodd• 14 years ago

I've given up on the native Date/Time stuff in favour for Joda Time (http://joda-time.sourceforge.net/)

Torn• 14 years ago

Joda Time is an absolute necessity for working reliably with dates and times, especially if you're handling different timezones

ajross2• 14 years ago

I know nothing about Joda Time (though I am pretty familiar with calendrics and am the author of YetAnotherToyGregorianCalendar routine). But I have to argue with the premise of your statement:

You cannot work reliably with dates and times, period. Even using the right software doesn't save you from a representation that sucks. Every spring in most places there are time values that don't exist. Every fall there are time values that are ambiguous and happen twice. Every year a bunch of governments change their time zone definitions and muck up a bunch of stored "future" times.

Do your work with "time" as a numeric quantity on a number line and convert to (never from) human-readable dates on output. If you need to parse a date, ever, you are doommed.

eropple• 14 years ago

Same - we've got a lot of legacy crap at my job and I haven't yet sold folks on Joda Time, but it's part of my standard jar set (Guava, Guice, Trove, Joda Time) for new personal projects.

hughw• 14 years ago

Yes. The problem is that at some point you talk to some library function that uses java.util.Date, and there goes your time zone information (although with hackery you can sometimes get the library to do the right thing).

programminggeek• 14 years ago

DATE4J is a good alternative to the standard Java Date/Time lib or even Joda Time. (http://www.date4j.net/)

djhworld• 14 years ago

I'm pretty sure most Java developers moved to Joda Time long ago to solve this issue. It's pretty much standard.

Well, maybe not enterprise developers (like me) who rarely get to use "untrusted" third party libs.

bartonfink• 14 years ago

A long time ago (2010), I was told that we couldn't use generics or annotations because they weren't "industry standard Java." I suppose the reality of that phrase depends heavily on the industry.

jrabone• 14 years ago

http://blog.joda.org/search?q=jsr-310 provides some interesting backstory to the JSR-310 / Joda Time saga...

How Badly Do We Want a New Java Date/Time API?

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