Timezone Conversion Strategies with Ecto in Elixir

The content revolves around best practices for managing timezones within an Elixir application that uses Ecto for data storage. In particular, the author is developing an examination system that captures `start_date` and `end_date` fields from the front end using local timezone. The debate is whether to convert these times to UTC when storing them in the database, and how to efficiently convert them back to local time when retrieving. Community members discuss different approaches, weighing the pros and cons of handling conversion at the front-end versus the backend and highlighting the importance of consistency throughout the application. The input from the community ranges from recommending all communications between the front end and backend to be in UTC, to considerations of storing both UTC and local time alongside timezone information. Additionally, resources and libraries are suggested to assist with timezone management, such as Timex for Elixir.