[LEAPSECS] Future time

Steve Allen sla at ucolick.org
Sun Jan 19 11:48:07 EST 2014


On Sun 2014-01-19T09:20:31 -0700, Warner Losh hath writ:

> That's what I mean by "all" applications (computer applications)

> should care. Otherwise we get the two-tier system we have now where

> leap seconds are such second class citizens applications wanting to

> get them right have to jump through lots of hoops (doing their own

> time stuff), or they have to sacrifice some aspect of time to make

> things work: Give up on monotonically increasing time_t, give up on

> actually doing leap seconds (by smearing ala Google), etc.


Do all applications have to care and have consistent implementation
=> of the night shifts which are 7 hours long in spring and 9 in fall?
=> of the change to daylight time that Russia is rumored to be
considering to decree after Sochi is over?
=> of the sequence of calendar days in Samoa when it moved itself
across the International Date Line?n

All applications on Mac/iPhone/iPad in Jordan right now that care
about the time zone are getting it wrong by an hour. Life in Jordan
goes on.

If the leap seconds were placed into a similarly inconsequential part
of the interfaces then the applications could be similarly wrong about
leap seconds yet life would go on.

--
Steve Allen <sla at ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS)
UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855
1156 High Street Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015
Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m


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