This article promotes a few simplistic ways to think about time. First it says that the "UTC is the time in England minus the day light savings time", which is technically correct, however it's a bad metaphore to give, especially to people in UK. There are many who think "GMT includes daylight sayings time", and so "UTC = Time in England" can make people think that UTC includes daylight savings.
It's also very simplistic to say that a city is on UTC plus/minus X hours, because daylight savings time messes that up. It's much easier to use tzdata format such as "America/Houston", and use a library that uses the tzdata database. Then you never have to worry about when Houston changes from UTC-6 to UTC-5. No point in making work for yourself!
(Also lingustic observance: Seems to be the Americans who say "Daylights savings time" and UK English sayings "Summer Time", anyone else notice this?)
It's Europe-wide in fact. British Summer Time (+1) and Central European Summer Time (+2). Would be interested in the history behind the difference in terminology though.
I'm guessing it has something to do with a lot of people confusing which direction is the "savings" time. As in, did we just enter or leave DST? (I hear people making this mistake or its converse every year.) "Summer" time is harder to make that mistake with.
Yeah, I would not try to explain what UTC is "like". Most people can find the current UTC time somehow. When someone asks me about my timezone, I say "UTC minus six". As John suggests, that's simpler than trying to figure out is that person one or two hours ahead or behind my current time.
It's also very simplistic to say that a city is on UTC plus/minus X hours, because daylight savings time messes that up. It's much easier to use tzdata format such as "America/Houston", and use a library that uses the tzdata database. Then you never have to worry about when Houston changes from UTC-6 to UTC-5. No point in making work for yourself!
(Also lingustic observance: Seems to be the Americans who say "Daylights savings time" and UK English sayings "Summer Time", anyone else notice this?)