Proposed 64-bit changes

Kevin Kenny kennykb at crd.ge.com
Tue May 3 20:14:14 UTC 2005


To me, "extend 400 years" seems actually a trifle excessive, since
Daylight Saving Time rules appear to have a mean lifespan of a decade
or so.  The meaning of a given time zone that far in the future is,
to put it mildly, conjectural.

In Tcl's 'zic' counterpart (http://tip.tcl.tk/173), I decided somewhat
arbitrarily to go out 100 years as a compromise between Y2038 bugs and
disc footprint.  If we all settle on 400 years as the standard, I could
of course change that, but I'm reluctant to spend the space on it.
(Tcl has a way of getting ported to strange places like routers
and X-ray machines.)  As I said, it sounds a bit excessive, because
civil time zones are not stable for anywhere near that length of time.
Messing around with the clocks seems to be one favorite activity of
governments that want to give the impression that they're doing
something.

--
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin KENNY   GE Corporate Research & Development
kennykb at crd.ge.com           P. O. Box 8, Bldg. K-1, Rm. 5B36A
                             Schenectady, New York 12301-0008 USA




More information about the tz mailing list