Stan Heckman <stan at stanheckman.com> wrote:
> "Lex Spoon" <lex at cc.gatech.edu> writes:
> > The epoch is left at Jan 1, 1901.  Does it really matter what we
> > use? 
> 
> It matters because changing the epoch seems likely to break some
> code. Which means I like your choice to leave it alone. :-) The only
> (very slight) disadvantage to 1901 is that it makes it more difficult
> to write method comments.

:)


> 
> If the epoch were after 1972, we could simply describe utcSecondsClock
> as "return the seconds since <the epoch> minus leap seconds."  But
> since it is is back in 1901, before the definition of UTC or the
> official recording of leap seconds, I can't think of a short, clear
> comment. I imagine unreadable comments like "return 86400 times the
> number of days since Jan 1, 1901 GMT, plus the number of seconds since
> UTC midnight today."
> 


*Sob*  Actually, I completely forgot about leap seconds.  Drats.  I
don't suppose there is a time zone that ignores leap seconds?  So that
it would actually be 86400 times the number of days, plus the number of
elapsed seconds today?


Lex