Programmer Humor @lemmy.ml Kayn @dormi.zone 1 yr. ago

JavaScript's days are numbered

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_formatting_and_storage_bugs#Year_275,760

Programmer Humor @programming.dev Kayn @dormi.zone 1 yr. ago

19 comments

If we're still using JavaScript in the year 275,760 we deserve the resulting epoch collapse
- Bold of you to assume that humanity will even exist at that point. In fact, it'd be pretty bold to assume we'll exist in 2757; forget those last two digits.
  
  I'm not even sure we'll be existing in 2057 at this rate
- Javascript will subsume all other languages by then. Humanity won't even know that others existed, or even what it is. It'll just be called Script, the way you tell computers what to do when the AI doesn't understand your prompts correctly.
- Epochalypse...
- Who knew The Cosmic AC would be running js.
  
  Thanks, I love oddly comforting techno theology
Fuck, the title got my hopes up.
I'm still thinking about the 2037 problem.
- Not to be that guy, but it is the 2038 problem for 32 bit epoch. Check this out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
  
  But yeah, that's a much bigger issue.
  
  No, the 2037 problem is fixing the Y2k38 problem in 2037.
  
  Before that there's no problem :)
  
  right, my bad.
- 2038*
- This problem is now so old that hardware running it in 2038 will be obsolete
The replacement for the JavaScript Date API is on the cusp of finalization.

They just got an RFC proposal approved by the IETF for an extension to the way datetime strings should be serialized that adds support for non-Gregorian calendar systems. That seems to have been the last round of red tape holding them back. Now it's just a handful of bugfix PRs to merge and browsers can begin shipping implementations unflagged.

You can watch the progress here if you find it interesting. In the meantime, there is a polyfill out now if you want to get started with it.
All numbers in JS are stored as 64-bit floats, so past a certain point, precision starts to degrade.
- Teach me why pretty pls
  
  Well that's how floating point units work.
  
  The following is more a explanation about the principle than a precise description of float values in programming, since working with binary values has its own quirks, especially with values lower than one, but anyways:
  
  Think about a number noted by a base and an exponent, like
  1.000.000
  can be represented as 1*10^6.
  
  1.000.001 now becomes 1,000001*10^6.
  
  If you want more precision or bigger numbers maintaining the same precision, you will have to add further and further decimal places and that hits a limit at a certain amount.
  
  So basically you can either get really high numbers in a floating point unit or you can store really precise small numbers. But you cannot achieve both at the same time.
- Precision always degrades
so is anything in any computer

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