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Last time we had a leap second in 2012, it crashed a whole lot of web servers. There was a bug in Linux kernel threading that MySQL and Java both triggered. Ple

Last time we had a leap second in 2012, it crashed a whole lot of web servers. There was a bug in Linux kernel threading that MySQL and Java both triggered. Please forgive the self-link, but lots of details from the time on my blog: http://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/bad/leap-second-2012.html http://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/bad/leap-second-2012.htm... Leap seconds are a fact of timekeeping. Google's approach of slewing the clock seems like a robust way to implement it if you don't trust the operating system to do it right. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/time-technology-and-leaping-seconds.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/time-technology-and-l...

iwwr 12y ago
>Last time we had a leap second in 2012, it crashed a whole lot of web servers. That exposed a bunch of underlying bugs, didn't it? It may be a good thing in the long run than without it, especially with a one year's head start.
- emptybits 12y ago
  Somewhere, there's a vindicated coder shouting, "See! I told you that extra code and storage to allow for a schedule of arbitrary future insertions of leap seconds would pay off!"
- NelsonMinar 12y ago
  That's the optimistic view. But leap seconds also caused problems in 2008 and 2005. It seems more likely we'll just find some exciting new bugs. Hopefully not one that b0rks the whole kernel though.