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When we finally get to Mars, all programmers on Earth will scream in pain over having to program another timezone

Comments
  • 27
    Hopefully the moment.js team are on it.
  • 12
    Great, more time zones to deal with, and time-offsets.

    If(planet() == "mars"){
    return currentMarsTimeForUser();
    // this does some funky calculations based on current earth UTC + offsets and planet rotation speeds.
    }
    Else{
    return currentEarhTimeForUser();
    // this is just the usual stuff for working out where and when our user is in the world - excluding time machines
    }
  • 7
    @platypus
    Hopefully JS got extinct until then and we get a C-library for it.
  • 2
    @metamourge
    #include <timezone.h>
    main {

    Martian_time= earthtime + 18765890;
    return Martian_time;

    }
  • 1
    We probably won’t make it in this century so don’t worry.
  • 2
    @Alice First we need make people survive in space without external supplies. Won’t happen soon.
  • 1
    @Alice Chappie is cooler.
  • 5
    who said it'd by only one timezone? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • 1
    To make things worse, daylight savings time 🤔
  • 0
    not only will this be able to be added to standard time libs, they will most likely use UTC or GMT as they'd have to deal with Earth and only Earth.
  • 9
    The time calculation libraries will probably start including an optional velocity param to allow calculating time dialation while in transit.

    I do wonder how time calc will work in the future when we need to convert between e.g. UTC and probes / space craft in proximity to gravity wells, or moving at very high velocities. Then again without ftl communication, that's all pretty pointless.
  • 3
    Oh god it will have to include general relativity and the path of major celestial bodies in the Solar system. I guess the best approach would be to precalculate some datetimes and interpolate between them using a simplified general relativity thingy.
  • 1
    That's when the phrase "it's not rocket science" will actually make some difference and mean something.
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