Magnus Danielson wrote:
However, celebrating 1234567890 seconds of time_t makes no sense at
the time that time_t reads 1234567890 since it is not the number of
seconds from the reference epoch, it is a form of "mock seconds" to
make the scales fit.
Is that really a good reason not to celebrate a silly milestone on a
Friday afternoon? :-)
This is like the inane debate about whether the millennium was New
Year's Eve 1999 or 2000. The real answer is to celebrate both - as a
reason to have a most excellent party, that is. If forced to choose,
pick the earlier event since that preserves the second opportunity as
well.
I think it's clear that Unix time has the well-established naive
mapping to some form of UT. You can pick UT1 or UTC, giving
answers that differ by a fraction of a second. Anything that
secularly counts other than 86400 per UT day isn't Unix time: this
includes counting either UTC or TAI seconds.
It is naive yes...
From Dictionary.com:
naive -adjective
1. having or showing unaffected simplicity of nature or absence of
artificiality; unsophisticated; ingenuous.
2. having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information;
credulous: She's so naive she believes everything she reads. He has a
very naive attitude toward politics.
3. having or marked by a simple, unaffectedly direct style reflecting
little or no formal training or technique: valuable naive 19th-century
American portrait paintings.
4. not having previously been the subject of a scientific experiment,
as an animal.
The little dig here, of course, is that Zefram means naive with a
definition something like #1 and Magnus is asserting #2.
However - there is real value in preserving simplicity of design as
with definition #3. Zefram's explanation is succinct and accurate.
UTC is a flavor of universal time. UT is phase-locked to the Sun.
Meanwhile, while we chat amiably, the ITU is treating the whole world
like #4.
Rob
_______________________________________________
LEAPSECS mailing list
[email protected]
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
