Leap No More

Everyone who worked in computer for a while has a story about leap second. I still remember “fun times” when Cisco crapped its pants back in 2016, But, like year-2K bugs, this will be just a story to scare young engineers.

Like most good news these days, this one too comes from the Europe. At the General Conference on Weights and Measures it was decided that leap seconds are dead as of 2026-10-15. As part of Resolution 5, no further adjustment between astronomical and “real” time is to be done. In short, 17 extra seconds that were added will remain but no further adjustment will be done until difference reaches 1 hour. Since 1 hour has 3600 seconds, unless something really unexpected happens, that’s not problem I will deal with.

As someone who had to deal with testing of leap second behavior quite a few times, good riddance! While I might be insensitive to the plight of astronomers that will now need to pay attention to this difference, I am happy not to have this in my life. Now, only to get rid of daylight savings time changes… :)