[LEAPSECS] alternative to smearing

John Sauter John_Sauter at systemeyescomputerstore.com
Wed Jan 4 09:55:35 EST 2017


On Wed, 2017-01-04 at 09:42 -0500, Michael Rothwell wrote:
> The Gregorian calendar doesn't mess up how computers keep track of
> time, like leap seconds do. Neither do time zones. Leap seconds are
> different -- a special kind of awful.

I don't regard leap seconds as being a special kind of awful.  The
Gregorian calendar has February, which if it had been introduced in
1972 would have been regarded as "awful" for computers because it has a
variable length.  Most computer software deals with February correctly
because it has been around longer than computers.  The same is true of
time zones.  Leap seconds, with its variable-length minutes, seems
worse only because it was introduced relatively recently.
    John Sauter (John_Sauter at systemeyescomputerstore.com)

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