Re: time_t size: The year 2038 bug?

[Daniel Phillips]

On Thu, 06 Jan 2000, Dominik Kubla wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 05, 2000 at 06:43:17PM -0800, David Schwartz wrote:
> > 
> > You are making his point, not refuting it. All these things have moved to
> > 32-bits where they would previously have been done with 8-bit or 16-bit
> > processors. They will likewise move to 64-bits.
> > 
> Hmm, haven't looked at it from this angle.  But the switch to 32bits was
> done by necessity and 8/16bit EC are not dead. 

This is absolutely true.  The question is not whether your old 486 will still
be in service in 2037 but whether *any* 32 bit cpus will still be in service. 
And it's a dead certainty that they will.  What do we think will be running on
our wristwatches and phones?  Even 40 years from now, 64 bit cpus will just be
a waste of power and space for many embedded applications.

It seems to me this is a *tiny* thing to fix, given that applications and
libraries have 37 years to migrate to a slightly new syscall, as long as the
bad old way of doing things remains available.  OK, I'll stop now - I suppose my
point would have been made better if I'd also attached a patch :-)

-- 
Daniel