---
title: "Stop using DateTime in 2026 (unless you work for UNESCO)"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/stop-using-datetime-in-2026-unless-you-work-for-unesco--qwnlzpkwl
source_url: https://blog.arkency.com/stop-using-datetime-in-2026-unless-you-work-for-unesco/
type: article
source: "arkency"
published: 2026-01-15T14:38:34.612Z
updated: 2026-01-15T14:38:56.235Z
tags: ["ruby", "rails"]
reading_time: 4
upvotes: 0
comments: 0
language: en
---

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# Stop using DateTime in 2026 (unless you work for UNESCO)

**[arkency](https://daily.dev/sources/arkency)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

Ruby's DateTime class has been deprecated since version 3.0, yet developers continue using it unnecessarily. The historical advantage of DateTime's wider date range disappeared in Ruby 1.9.2 when Time adopted a 63-bit integer representation. DateTime lacks timezone support, is incompatible with Rails' ActiveSupport extensions, has confusing arithmetic (adding 1 means 1 day instead of 1 second), and ignores daylight saving time. The only legitimate use case is handling historical calendar reforms for dates before 1752 across different countries. For modern applications, use Time.current for timestamps and Date.current for dates.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://blog.arkency.com/stop-using-datetime-in-2026-unless-you-work-for-unesco/>

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---

Tags: [#ruby](https://daily.dev/tags/ruby), [#rails](https://daily.dev/tags/rails)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/stop-using-datetime-in-2026-unless-you-work-for-unesco--qwnlzpkwl)