Found "-1 days ago"

[+rtyrie]

I noticed something interesting today while browsing nearby caches. One cache was reported as found "-1 days ago"! The finder used tomorrows date as the find date, causing this "negative number" issue. As a software developer myself, I laughed when I saw this, as I have seen similar issues in software that I have worked on. Its not a big issue of course as it will return to normal tomorrow, but most cachers that I know of are not able to find caches in the future! Perhaps if the finder posts a find on a future date, it should be set to the current day?

[+Caching Scout]

Its enabled for those cachers that are ahead of the Seattle server time (Uk, Austrailia, etc).

It makes sense, but could be re-written for those areas that wouldn't need tohave a complety different day.

[+mtrax]

Its enabled for those cachers that are ahead of the Seattle server time (Uk, Austrailia, etc).

It makes sense, but could be re-written for those areas that wouldn't need tohave a complety different day.

right, I think this is old issue, and relates to TimeZone of user, since the Region is known the system should be able to adjust times, but my guess all the times a Local time not GMT / UTC so it makes it just that harder to update there system.

 

Note the other place we see it is when entering logs ie the default day is usually "yesterday" rather than today.

[+paleolith]

Preventing a "find tomorrow" would require knowing the time zone and Daylight Saving Time (aka summer time and probably many other names, some of them not allowed in this forum) of every cache. I'm sure there are applications available which can translate from coordinates to local time, but it's not trivial. Even in the US, knowing the state does not mean you know the time zone, and until recently did not mean you knew the DST status.

 

They could kludge it to narrow the window, but eliminating it entirely would take a significant development effort.

 

It's such a minor matter that I'd rather see the effort put into other things.

 

Edward

[knowschad]

Its also useful for those with psychic abilities, as well with those that possessed with extreme optimism. I sometimes prelog my caches when I know that I may be too busy or tired to log them when I return from caching. In fact, I've been known to prelog my caches months in advance. Gives me something to do all winter long, and really helps free up some spare time once summer finally gets here. I can cache until dark and not worry about logging.

[+rtyrie]

Preventing a "find tomorrow" would require knowing the time zone and Daylight Saving Time (aka summer time and probably many other names, some of them not allowed in this forum) of every cache. I'm sure there are applications available which can translate from coordinates to local time, but it's not trivial. Even in the US, knowing the state does not mean you know the time zone, and until recently did not mean you knew the DST status.

 

They could kludge it to narrow the window, but eliminating it entirely would take a significant development effort.

 

It's such a minor matter that I'd rather see the effort put into other things.

 

Edward

 

It is certainly a minor matter, but I wasn't thinking of anything complicated like time zone detection or even preventing logs on a future date. I was thinking solely about the end display of the web page. For example, if the find date is in the future, the web page would simply display "Today", as it usually does, instead of "-1 days ago". This would be a very simple change. But as you mentioned, it does not really matter. I was just surprised when I saw this (for the first time).

[+Glenn]

Preventing a "find tomorrow" would require knowing the time zone and Daylight Saving Time (aka summer time and probably many other names, some of them not allowed in this forum) of every cache. I'm sure there are applications available which can translate from coordinates to local time, but it's not trivial. Even in the US, knowing the state does not mean you know the time zone, and until recently did not mean you knew the DST status.

 

They could kludge it to narrow the window, but eliminating it entirely would take a significant development effort.

 

It's such a minor matter that I'd rather see the effort put into other things.

 

Edward

 

They wouldn't have to kludge anything together nor would it take a significant development effort. This is far from a new problem. It is such a common problem that most computer languages have a set of functions already created to handle time zones. In fact this very forum software "understands" time zones. I see posts timestamped in my local time and you see posts timestamped in your local time. Since most people set their home coordinates it shouldn't be all that difficult to use that to determine their local time. They have all the needed information it is just a matter of implementation and frankly I don't see this as a major issue for most people so I would assume that this is very low on the to do list if it is on there at all.

[+Lil Devil]

It's funny. I remember when we used to see almost weekly threads from our Australian friends, complaining that they just went caching and now they want to log their finds, but the system won't let them use "today's" date. Of course "today" to them is "tomorrow" to the rest of us, and there was a limit in the system that didn't let you log a find in the future.

 

So in January, 2008, Groundspeak updated the site to allow logs for "tomorrow"

• Added acceptance of tomorrow's date to cache logging for folks living in the "future" (Australians etc.)
  

The funny part is that the "fix" is now being seen as a "bug."

[+rtyrie]

It's funny. I remember when we used to see almost weekly threads from our Australian friends, complaining that they just went caching and now they want to log their finds, but the system won't let them use "today's" date. Of course "today" to them is "tomorrow" to the rest of us, and there was a limit in the system that didn't let you log a find in the future.

 

So in January, 2008, Groundspeak updated the site to allow logs for "tomorrow"

• Added acceptance of tomorrow's date to cache logging for folks living in the "future" (Australians etc.)
  

The funny part is that the "fix" is now being seen as a "bug."

The fix is perfectly fine. My suggestion is simply that the phrase "-1 days ago", should be replaced with "Today", as it makes more sense to everyone. Again, its not a big issue, but it is such a simple change.