4 ms·
This problem is more related to a programming underestimation than the actual limitations of a 32bit CPU (which can happily process numbers or IDs that arbitrar
by russellbeattie 9y ago
This problem is more related to a programming underestimation than the actual limitations of a 32bit CPU (which can happily process numbers or IDs that arbitrarily big if you have the memory for it and program it correctly).
That said, this is definitely indicative of what's going to happen in just 20 years, 6 months and 20 days from now. I mean, we're still cranking out 32bit CPUs in the billions, running more and more devices, and devs still aren't thinking beyond a few years out. I know of code that I wrote 12 years ago still happily cranking away in production, and there may be some I wrote even longer than that out there... and I guarantee I hadn't given two thoughts about the year 2038 problem back then, and I doubt many devs are giving it much thought today.
It's truly going to be chaos.
- protomyth 9y agoThe sad part is people are going to look at the lack of a year 2000 event and assume 2038 is going to be a "dud", when they fail to see all the damn work that went into making sure Y2K was a dud including a significant portion of IT hours and probably a lot of extra support laid in. I expect 2038 to be a rare hell because of the nature of the devices. Y2K was an IT problem, but 2038 will be an embedded system problem and that's going to be a much more painful thing to audit. Moving from the server room to inside equipment and walls is going to be fun.
- isolli 9y agoWhy 2038?