[GauntletWizard]

Yes, and I'm consistently disappointed that HN no longer gets this - It's becoming an echo chamber of those who can't and won't, rather than those who architect and learn. Timekeeping considerations are rarely-to-never the responsibility of an application programmer, and the scenarios presented - Leap seconds, etc - Are either meaningless (Who cares if your delta-t value is off by a second over a three month report?) or incredibly meaningful to the point you explicitly define them in the spec (High-freqeuncy trading systems should use good linearization mechanisms, not just rely on 'timestamp' - The programmers who are working on these problems have well documented that these are hard problems that throwing more time specificity bits doesn't solve).

High level talks about low-level concerns are rarely helpful. This overview of detailed problems without links or even understanding of the relevant literature (It doesn't even mention the scenario that time runs backwards, which is way more common and terrible than pretty much anything on the list). This was a bad post, and it's bad training - Bringing up superficial questions without giving places to check answers for sanity. Many people will likely think about these issues halfheartedly, form half-baked answers, and propagate mistakes. Good learning not only asks questions, but asks follow ups and helps reach complete solutions.