| Most programmers who just read about the leap second and don't get enough information seem to miss this: If you use time() function as POSIX defines it you already now get the "sane" number of seconds for the common calculations: to get the day after and the same time just always add 86400 seconds. It was so even at the day the last leap second happened (June 30, 2015). So the commonly used algorithms don't have to care. We already use the time as the astronomical time, add 86400 seconds and get the expected time a day after, and that there were 9e9 more oscillations of the Ce 133 atom between these two datetimes compared to other days we don't have to care. Only if you change your system not to be POSIX compliant the calculations aren't obvious. Just don't do it. The system as it is now, with the leap seconds happening, works. Who needs to care about TAI already cares. No need changing it. http://www.wired.com/2015/01/torvalds_leapsecond/ "You’d have to teach people to not care about the correlation of time to the sun, or the correlation of dates to the seasons. That doesn’t sound very realistic. The people and computers who really care about “atomic” time tend to be astronomers. For the rest of us – both people and computers – we’re probably better off taking the POSIX approach to it, and just say “who cares”, with a few unlucky people worrying about bugs happening because of the perversities of timekeeping." |