[LEAPSECS] USWP7A docs for 2013 September meetings

[Hal Murray]

>> I know you've had lots of experience with designing APIs,

>> but I think that you came to the wrong conclusions by catering

>> to ignorance rather than educating the ignorance away. 



> The thing to bear in mind is that you are an atypical user. Most users

> probably don't even know what a leap second is. Those that do don't really

> care and won't think about it when designing their code. In addition, most

> users never read the documentation. Given this, education simply isn't

> realistic. And including them would result in a whole world of bugs that

> occur very infrequently. 


I'm clearly far from typical since I'm on this list.  I think most of my 
friends know about leap seconds, but I hang out with a lot geeks.  (Not 
necessarily computer types.)

What fraction of Java code/coders are working on UI issues as compared to 
lower level stuff like networks or data bases or time or ???

----------

There was an interesting discussion on NANOG starting a few days ago.  The 
context was horrible security bugs in IPMI.  Good summary here:
  http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2013-August/060427.html
(Has link to the Usenix paper.)

It started with a Washington Post article:
  Researchers figure out how to hack tens of thousands of servers
  http://tinyurl.com/mufbuq2
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/14/
    researchers-figure-out-how-to-hack-tens-of-thousands-of-servers/
I thought it was good.  I expect most non-geeks can understand it.

The last section points out a culture gap.  Embedded guys don't have security 
in their culture.  Traditionally, their stuff has not been connected to the 
big-bad internet so they haven't had their noses rubbed in the problems.  No 
war stories.

Is there a similar culture gap in the Java community for things like time?  
If yes, what others?


-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.