[LEAPSECS] [time-nuts] Leap Quirks
Magnus Danielson
magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org
Mon Jan 5 02:28:22 EST 2009
Poul-Henning,
Poul-Henning Kamp skrev:
> In message <5806D024-146D-43E4-AEA0-A7AA514E3EA4 at noao.edu>, Rob Seaman writes:
>> M. Warner Losh wrote:
>>
>>> POSIX doesn't support leap seconds.
>> I'm curious. Is this the only widely recognized shortcoming of POSIX?
>
> No, POSIX has numerous defects and bad choices, but barring a major
> effort by major governments, POSIX is what we have.
>
> One particular horrible example of POSIX stupidity is the lack of
> a pthread_mutex_assert() or the fact that pthread_cond_timedwait()
> takes an absolute time as timeout, not time interval.
>
> ISO-C has stupidities as well, I spent far more time on one of them
> because because people didn't think clearly:
>
> The strftime() function returns zero on error, or the length
> of the string produced.
>
> Now, imagine calling strftime("%p") in a locale which does not
> use AM/PM indication because they are 24h based.
It could be argued that:
A standard which is not revised constantly is a dead standard.
Thus:
A standard which does not have faults in it can't be revised constantly.
Cheers,
Magnus
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