Hacker News Reader

Postgresql doesn't offer proper timezone storage, or in fact any timezone storage. Timestamptz is just a UTC timestamp that is converted to/from your connection-specified timezone. You completely lose the "what timezone was this originally specified in" data.

View on HN

And see this StackOverflow question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9571392/ignoring-timezone...

The point is that the timestamp type is meant more for calendaring, unless you're manually normalizing the dates you're passing into postgres to a certain timezone like UTC. Timestamptz is what you actually want 99% of the time.

Yes, timestamptz is the one you want 100% of the time. But there are a ton of people who don't realize it doesn't work the way they think it does. Lots of people think it stores the timezone, and it is really important to understand that is not the case when designing your app. Postgresql is actually completely lacking in the ability to store and validate timezones, as well as converting values to other timezones in useful ways. It is quite possibly the biggest weak spot postgresql has.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com