Re: [LEAPSECS] Mechanism to provide tai-utc.dat locally

From: M. Warner Losh <imp_at_BSDIMP.COM>
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 21:52:21 -0700 (MST)

In message: <20061226030318.GA6416_at_fysh.org>
            Zefram <zefram_at_fysh.org> writes:
: Keith Winstein wrote:
: > what should a library do when a program asks to
: >convert between UTC and TAI for some instant further than six months in
: >the future?
:
: Refuse, of course. The correct answer is "I don't know". You might
: know if asked later.

Actually, the real answer is domain specific. There are many things
that don't really care (when do I need to make the next 20 house
payments, off by one second just doesn't matter at all since
transcations are batched on a daily basis a few days early). There
are other things that do care (when do I fire the lasers at the
target). For those things, however, it is rare to be computing time
into the future that far.

Writing a library that copes with both types of users can be
problematical at best...

Warner
Received on Mon Dec 25 2006 - 20:55:05 PST