Big manufacturers finally can't stand "adding one second", and companies such as Microsoft, Google meta propose to abolish leap seconds

writing  |  Xiao Xiao From the Aofei temple
Source  |  qubits , official account QbitAI

Big factories can no longer stand the pile of leap seconds bug 了 .

Now? , Google Meta Microsoft, Amazon and other technology giants have launched an initiative ： Abolish leap seconds ！

Leap seconds , To put it bluntly, it is by giving “ World standard time ” Add _（ Or minus ）_1 second , Make it closer “ Solar hour ”.

“ World standard time ”（UTC） And atomic clock Precise time synchronization of measurement ,“ Solar hour ” according to The earth rotates Measured , But the earth's rotation is not stable .

for example , The difference between the two is more than 0.9 seconds , It's just 23 spot 59 branch 59 Seconds vs 00 spot 00 branch 00 Between seconds , Insert a nonexistent “23 spot 59 branch 60 second ”, To slow down the time by one second .

Ran goose , It's this leap second that seems a little useful , Make a lot of programmers worried .

One second less out of thin air 、 Or a “ The first 60 second ”, You have to mobilize a crowd to adjust the time _（ If temporarily closed NTP etc. ）_、 Modify the program , Minimize the impact of leap seconds . Regarding this Meta Express ：

The damage caused by leap seconds , Much more useful than it brings .

These big factories have also found two authoritative institutions , National Institute of standards and Technology _（NIST）_ And the International Bureau of measurement _（BIPM）_, Reached an agreement with them .

Although leap seconds seem a little far away from us , But over the years , It really caused a lot of trouble to the computer industry .

“1 Second ” Let the computer down

Leap second at 1972 Was introduced in , So far, it has increased 27 It's a leap second .

Add leap seconds each time , Will cause problems in many companies' computers or applications .

for example , The Internet is in full swing 2012 year , Leap seconds bring a wave “ A flood of water ” Influence .

Leap seconds in that year 6 month 30 After the number appears , Foreign communities Reddit、 browser Mozilla、 LinkedIn and Dianping website Yelp All servers of have problems , In addition, the ticket reservation service relying on timers Amadeus There's also a breakdown .

But the impact of leap seconds , Did not disappear after this , After all, there are always new bug appear _（ Manual formation ）_.

2017 year ,Cloudflare Also encountered a leap second fault , As a result, many customers cannot use relevant services . Although programmers have written the response program in advance , However, in actual operation , There's still something wrong .

therefore , How to eliminate the impact of leap seconds ？

At present, the most commonly used method is “ Split method ”.

Take Google for example , Programmers will divide the extra second into many small periods _（ Such as a fraction of a second ）_, then , Quietly add to the time without affecting the operation of the program .

such , When leap seconds come , The program has actually passed this second safely .

about Meta For the programmer , A similar approach was taken , Put this leap second on the schedule silently “ erase ”.

But anyway , As long as the next leap second will appear , Big manufacturers will continue to face the impact of leap seconds , Spend extra energy “ eliminate ” it .

Including Google 、 Amazon 、Meta And big companies like Microsoft , We all feel that the appearance of leap seconds does more harm than good ,Meta He also wrote a special article , Call for the abolition of leap seconds .

Of course , It is not just these big factories that want to abolish leap seconds .

As early as 2015 In the year , The International Telecommunication Union is WRC Whether to keep leap seconds has been discussed on .

It's just that the report results haven't come out yet , It is expected to wait until 2023 year .

For abolishing leap seconds , Some netizens make fun of ：

Facebook developers are so afraid of leap seconds , They think it's easier to push the timing change than to fix the code .

But some netizens mentioned before , It's not just IT industry , Industry will also be affected by leap seconds .

Have you ever been affected by leap seconds ？

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[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/tech-giants-try-banishing-the-leap-second-to-stop-internet-crashes/

[2] https://engineering.fb.com/2022/07/25/production-engineering/its-time-to-leave-the-leap-second-in-the-past/

[3] https://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2015/53.aspx