5 ms·

A leap minute every few centuries makes much more sense than a leap second every few years. We have until our great-great-grandchildren to prepare.

GJim 2y ago
That really is the motherload of technical debt. This discussion really is highlining the cultural differences between software engineers and other engineering fields.
- zarzavat 2y ago
  Not really. Adding leap seconds at the end of years is inferior because a year is a human-scale duration. Planning something “next year” is human-scale. Planning something “next century” is not human-scale because I won’t be alive then. If we use leap minutes then most people will not see one in their lifetime, compared to everyone seeing multiple leap seconds in their lifetime.
  - ChrisSD 2y ago
    But when that leap minute does eventually occur, it's going to cause havoc in all the systems that don't handle it. Which, let's face it, there are going to be a lot of. Either because they were never designed for it or else the relevant code paths were never actually tested.
    - mminer237 2y ago
      You could broadcast a leap minute with a decade to prepare for it and most software would still be developed, used, and die off in the 90 years in between. It's better for 15% of relevant software to have to worry about something so consequentially minor than 100%.
      - scheme271 2y ago
        That didn't work so well for y2k issues. Just this month there was an article about a woman that keeps getting id'ed as being 1 year old instead of 101 years old because of a y2k fix.
throw0101d 2y ago
> A leap minute every few centuries makes much more sense than a leap second every few years. We have until our great-great-grandchildren to prepare. People can't get the regular changes of DST and February 29 correct, and you want them to get a one-off change right? I'd rather 'inflict' change (semi-)regularly so people at least try to get things right and get some practice, as opposed to a Hail Mary pass/change in some distance future.
- zarzavat 2y ago
  We already have rules that are much rarer and more impactful than leap minutes would be. For example on Feb 29th 2000 an entire extra day was inserted on a century, an event that only happens once every 400 years! It was a complete non-event and only time nerds remember that it happened. In the case of a leap minute, the worst that can happen is that your clock is 1 minute out every couple of centuries. Doesn’t seem so bad and certainly much better than dealing with leap seconds every few years. We don’t need to constantly rehearse for such an event, we can just do nothing and die without worrying about it.
  - Gare 2y ago
    It was a non-event because 2100 will actually be an "odd" one, divisible by four but not a leap year. Every dumb implementation that looked at division by 4 got 2000 right.
- lmm 2y ago
  > People can't get the regular changes of DST and February 29 correct, and you want them to get a one-off change right? Leap seconds are already rare enough that people can't handle them properly. Every time one happens the bug fixes from the last one have been undone.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
Please no just let it drift
marcosdumay 2y ago
If we are still using the same calendar in 60000 years, and if the Earth's Sun is still so important that we have to adjust our watches, we can start to talk about a leap day. Granted, this is some 100 times longer than our calendar has lived. And some 10 times longer than any human calendar. So, I suggest we postpone the issue a bit.
- zarzavat 2y ago
  Indeed, leap day, leap hour, leap minute, etc is a distinction without a difference because either way the solution is the same: do absolutely nothing and let future humanity decide how much drift it can tolerate.
gavinhoward 2y ago
And yet, they won't, or won't be able to. Leap seconds allow leap second bugs to be fixed in one generation. Leap minute bugs need cross-generational debugging. https://gavinhoward.com/2023/02/make-the-leap-second-first-class-an-open-letter-to-the-international-telecommunication-union/ https://gavinhoward.com/2023/02/make-the-leap-second-first-c...

GJim 2y ago

That really is the motherload of technical debt. This discussion really is highlining the cultural differences between software engineers and other engineering fields.

zarzavat 2y ago
Not really. Adding leap seconds at the end of years is inferior because a year is a human-scale duration. Planning something “next year” is human-scale. Planning something “next century” is not human-scale because I won’t be alive then. If we use leap minutes then most people will not see one in their lifetime, compared to everyone seeing multiple leap seconds in their lifetime.
- ChrisSD 2y ago
  But when that leap minute does eventually occur, it's going to cause havoc in all the systems that don't handle it. Which, let's face it, there are going to be a lot of. Either because they were never designed for it or else the relevant code paths were never actually tested.
  - mminer237 2y ago
    You could broadcast a leap minute with a decade to prepare for it and most software would still be developed, used, and die off in the 90 years in between. It's better for 15% of relevant software to have to worry about something so consequentially minor than 100%.
    - scheme271 2y ago
      That didn't work so well for y2k issues. Just this month there was an article about a woman that keeps getting id'ed as being 1 year old instead of 101 years old because of a y2k fix.

throw0101d 2y ago

> A leap minute every few centuries makes much more sense than a leap second every few years. We have until our great-great-grandchildren to prepare. People can't get the regular changes of DST and February 29 correct, and you want them to get a one-off change right? I'd rather 'inflict' change (semi-)regularly so people at least try to get things right and get some practice, as opposed to a Hail Mary pass/change in some distance future.

zarzavat 2y ago
We already have rules that are much rarer and more impactful than leap minutes would be. For example on Feb 29th 2000 an entire extra day was inserted on a century, an event that only happens once every 400 years! It was a complete non-event and only time nerds remember that it happened. In the case of a leap minute, the worst that can happen is that your clock is 1 minute out every couple of centuries. Doesn’t seem so bad and certainly much better than dealing with leap seconds every few years. We don’t need to constantly rehearse for such an event, we can just do nothing and die without worrying about it.
- Gare 2y ago
  It was a non-event because 2100 will actually be an "odd" one, divisible by four but not a leap year. Every dumb implementation that looked at division by 4 got 2000 right.
lmm 2y ago
> People can't get the regular changes of DST and February 29 correct, and you want them to get a one-off change right? Leap seconds are already rare enough that people can't handle them properly. Every time one happens the bug fixes from the last one have been undone.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago

Please no just let it drift

marcosdumay 2y ago

If we are still using the same calendar in 60000 years, and if the Earth's Sun is still so important that we have to adjust our watches, we can start to talk about a leap day. Granted, this is some 100 times longer than our calendar has lived. And some 10 times longer than any human calendar. So, I suggest we postpone the issue a bit.

zarzavat 2y ago
Indeed, leap day, leap hour, leap minute, etc is a distinction without a difference because either way the solution is the same: do absolutely nothing and let future humanity decide how much drift it can tolerate.

gavinhoward 2y ago

And yet, they won't, or won't be able to. Leap seconds allow leap second bugs to be fixed in one generation. Leap minute bugs need cross-generational debugging. https://gavinhoward.com/2023/02/make-the-leap-second-first-class-an-open-letter-to-the-international-telecommunication-union/ https://gavinhoward.com/2023/02/make-the-leap-second-first-c...