[LEAPSECS] Lets get REAL about time.

Steve Allen sla at ucolick.org
Mon Jan 23 10:24:54 EST 2012


On 2012 Jan 23, at 01:45, Stephen Colebourne wrote:

> The problem here is that the meaning to a human of a point defined in

> the future solely in TAI seconds will change over time.


The same is true for most future events in any time scale.
The most evident example is the countdown for a launch.
Determining the instant of launch requires coordination of
many systems and people, each with its own clock and constraints,
contributing to an overall need to stop or reset the master clock.

This is a fact of the way real systems work, not a flaw in an API.
It is unlikely that a general API for that sort of coordination
can be constructed. It may be that a specific API could handle
such things as civil time zone resets and serve as a good example
for more complex scenarios.

--
Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855
University of California Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m



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