Re: [LEAPSECS] Longer leap second notice, was: Where the responsibility lies

From: Warner Losh <imp_at_BSDIMP.COM>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 17:46:02 -0700 (MST)

> I continue to find the focus on general purpose computing
> infrastructure to be unpersuasive. If we can convince hardware and
> software vendors to pay enough attention to timing requirements to
> implement such a strategy, we can convince them to implement a more
> complete time handling infrastructure. This seems like the real goal
> - one worthy of a concerted effort. Instead of trying to escape from
> the entanglements of this particular system requirement, why don't we
> focus on satisfying it in a forthright fashion?

As someone who has fought the battles, I can tell you that a simple
table is 10x or 100x easier to implement than dealing with parsing the
data from N streams. Sure, it limits the lifetime of the device, but
a 20 year limit is very reasonable.

I had one system that worked over the leap second correctly, even
though the code to parse the data from this specific brand of GPS
receiver hadn't been written yet. It worked because it knew about the
leap second in a table that we'd included on our flash as a fallback
when we didn't know anything else. If we could have a table for the
next 20 years, there'd be no need to even write the code to get from
the GPS stream :-).

I know you aren't pursuaded by such arguements. I find your
dismissive attitude towards software professionals that have
implemented a complete leap second handling infrastructure, with
pluggable sources for leap second rather annoying :-(

Warner
Received on Tue Jan 03 2006 - 16:47:53 PST