[LEAPSECS] Java: ThreeTen/JSR-310

[Stephen Colebourne]

On 28 January 2011 16:17, Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org> wrote:

> On Fri 2011-01-28T08:55:34 -0700, Warner Losh hath writ:

>> The larger point is that nobody implements this in the real world.

>> UTC-SLS is largely just a paper standard that the vast majority of

>> people completely ignore.  It seems unwise to code such a tenuous thing

>> into the Java standard libraries.  Not only does UTC-SLS need to have

>> better availability of the standard it is based on, it also needs to

>> actually be implemented by people...

>

> It is a given that the underlying POSIX time_t must be based on the

> broadcast time signal standard of the ITU-R.  There are too many

> systems which presume that the broadcast time will be used as the

> underlying system time, but those systems do not care what the name.

> of the broadcast standard is.

>

> If the ITU-R abandons the name UTC and abandons the leap seconds

> then the underlying time will be uniform in the way that POSIX

> always has pretended it is.  UTC can become a time zone.

> The zoneinfo file is a scheme which is already implemented by java.



>From a practical point of view, having taken significant efforts to

implement time-zones and their history in JSR-310, I do not see
leap-seconds as especially similar to time-zones.

As I said before, having looked at the subject, I now strongly believe
that any alteration to the current scheme of occasional leap-seconds
would be a serious mistake with large consequences.

@Warner, UTC-SLS is simply a clearly written way to reconcile UTC to
practical computing/business. I wish it was a recognised standard, but
it isn't. That places me in the position of making it a de facto
standard unless I receive a suitable alternative proposal. 8 million+
Java developers are the market here.

Stephen