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> You are free to use TAI instead of UTC in your computing projects, and don't have to try to change the definition of UTC. Not if you want to interoperate wit

> You are free to use TAI instead of UTC in your computing projects, and don't have to try to change the definition of UTC. Not if you want to interoperate with basically any other system that uses time.

AnotherGoodName 2y ago
Which is a very good reason to abolish the leap second in UTC to make it the same as TAI time. We can then make a new standard that includes the leap seconds and add them to that (which computers will only ever deal with when they format datetime). Leap seconds are absolutely part of the local datetime conversion functionality of time and not part of the counting functionality. Unix time should never have been different from TAI time in the first place but somewhere along the line some idiot made the absolute undeniable blunder of putting the seconds offset of the suns position relative to earth in the counter of seconds rather than putting it in function that formats the local datetime. Anyway here we are. It’s totally fair that UTC includes leap seconds but unfortunately they passed on UTC as is into the unixtime seconds counter which makes no sense since computers don’t print UTC datetime directly anyway, they have a special date() formatting functions that could easily and problem free add seconds as needed. So what’s the solution? Well telling everyone to suddenly adopt TAI is difficult. But we could just abolish leap seconds from UTC effectively migrating everyone without them realising it. Now I know that sounds odd. After all this blunder wasn’t done by the UTC creators, it was the Unix guys that fucked up here. UTC is literally meant to track the sun after all. But still it’s the easiest fix and we can always create a new UTC, UTC_leap_seconds, that we can use in our datetime printing functions if we want. Abolishing leap seconds from UTC and thus Unixtime will make the world run more smoothly. It’s also been planned as we speak so you don’t need to do anything but wait! :)
- anamexis 2y ago
  I don’t disagree!
- immibis 2y ago
  > Which is a very good reason to abolish the leap second in UTC to make it the same as TAI time. We can then make a new standard that includes the leap seconds and add them to that (which computers will only ever deal with when they format datetime). But, once again: that already exists!
  - AnotherGoodName 2y ago
    Sure but sometimes we have to do things twice because of a fuck up.
immibis 2y ago
Because changing the definition will make old-definition systems magically interoperable with new-definition systems?
- anamexis 2y ago
  It’s not changing any definition, it’s ceasing to add any new leap seconds to UTC. Which is what the BIPM is planning to do anyways!

AnotherGoodName 2y ago

Which is a very good reason to abolish the leap second in UTC to make it the same as TAI time. We can then make a new standard that includes the leap seconds and add them to that (which computers will only ever deal with when they format datetime). Leap seconds are absolutely part of the local datetime conversion functionality of time and not part of the counting functionality. Unix time should never have been different from TAI time in the first place but somewhere along the line some idiot made the absolute undeniable blunder of putting the seconds offset of the suns position relative to earth in the counter of seconds rather than putting it in function that formats the local datetime. Anyway here we are. It’s totally fair that UTC includes leap seconds but unfortunately they passed on UTC as is into the unixtime seconds counter which makes no sense since computers don’t print UTC datetime directly anyway, they have a special date() formatting functions that could easily and problem free add seconds as needed. So what’s the solution? Well telling everyone to suddenly adopt TAI is difficult. But we could just abolish leap seconds from UTC effectively migrating everyone without them realising it. Now I know that sounds odd. After all this blunder wasn’t done by the UTC creators, it was the Unix guys that fucked up here. UTC is literally meant to track the sun after all. But still it’s the easiest fix and we can always create a new UTC, UTC_leap_seconds, that we can use in our datetime printing functions if we want. Abolishing leap seconds from UTC and thus Unixtime will make the world run more smoothly. It’s also been planned as we speak so you don’t need to do anything but wait! :)

anamexis 2y ago
I don’t disagree!
immibis 2y ago
> Which is a very good reason to abolish the leap second in UTC to make it the same as TAI time. We can then make a new standard that includes the leap seconds and add them to that (which computers will only ever deal with when they format datetime). But, once again: that already exists!
- AnotherGoodName 2y ago
  Sure but sometimes we have to do things twice because of a fuck up.

immibis 2y ago

Because changing the definition will make old-definition systems magically interoperable with new-definition systems?

anamexis 2y ago
It’s not changing any definition, it’s ceasing to add any new leap seconds to UTC. Which is what the BIPM is planning to do anyways!