time and cost to reprogram computers for DST in Japan
Earlier this week Mainichi Japan published an article describing some criticism of reintroducing DST to Japan. My favorite quote was this one, abut the time and cost to reprogram computers: "The biggest hurdle in Japan to putting daylight saving time in place is the cost and workload required to adjust computer systems. Professor Tetsutaro Uehara of Ritsumeikan University, a specialist in information systems, estimates that it would take about four years and hundreds of billions of yen to do just that. "'Japan is a country with advanced information technology systems, and computers with timing functions are used everywhere. Many are programmed with Japan time based on the international standard time,' pointed out Uehara. 'Software would have to be rewritten to introduce summer time. Such work would take about four years and cost hundreds of billions of yen. It is crazy to attempt to put it in place by the 2020 Games,' said the bewildered professor." My source: Nakagawa S, Hatta K. Daylight saving time causes more trouble than benefits, say critics. The Mainichi. 2018-08-12. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180812/p2a/00m/0na/010000c
On Aug 17, 2018, at 3:53 AM, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
"The biggest hurdle in Japan to putting daylight saving time in place is the cost and workload required to adjust computer systems. Professor Tetsutaro Uehara of Ritsumeikan University, a specialist in information systems, estimates that it would take about four years and hundreds of billions of yen to do just that.
Let’s send ‘em a bill. ;-) Howard
Howard Hinnant <howard.hinnant@gmail.com> writes:
On Aug 17, 2018, at 3:53 AM, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
"The biggest hurdle in Japan to putting daylight saving time in place is the cost and workload required to adjust computer systems. Professor Tetsutaro Uehara of Ritsumeikan University, a specialist in information systems, estimates that it would take about four years and hundreds of billions of yen to do just that.
Let’s send ‘em a bill. ;-)
I rather imagine the professor has a point. Yeah, code that uses tzdb would be easy to update. But Japan is likely chock-full of locally grown code that has never had to cope with any situation other than "JST = UTC+9", and probably hasn't got any generality whatsoever about its timestamp handling. regards, tom lane
On 2018-08-17 13:13, Tom Lane wrote:
Howard Hinnant <howard.hinnant@gmail.com> writes:
On Aug 17, 2018, at 3:53 AM, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
"The biggest hurdle in Japan to putting daylight saving time in place is the cost and workload required to adjust computer systems. Professor Tetsutaro Uehara of Ritsumeikan University, a specialist in information systems, estimates that it would take about four years and hundreds of billions of yen to do just that. Let’s send ‘em a bill. ;-) I rather imagine the professor has a point. Yeah, code that uses tzdb would be easy to update. But Japan is likely chock-full of locally grown code that has never had to cope with any situation other than "JST = UTC+9", and probably hasn't got any generality whatsoever about its timestamp handling.
I doubt the bewildered professor has enough background in industrial, commercial, and retail software development and deployment practices, infrastructure and apps to make a reasonable estimate. Recall the posts we've had about squishing and updating tzdbs in firmware: major embedded libraries support tzdb and locales (although they can usually be omitted), get contributions from the chip makers who use them, and BSD and TZ code can be freely leveraged to support DST. As usual, the main problem will be updating or replacing software and systems not designed to be updated because of assumptions: like pre-Y2K, and 2005-2007 for the North American DST dates rule changes. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
On 2018-8-19 00:58, Brian Inglis wrote:
On 2018-08-17 13:13, Tom Lane wrote:
Howard Hinnant <howard.hinnant@gmail.com> writes:
On Aug 17, 2018, at 3:53 AM, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
"The biggest hurdle in Japan to putting daylight saving time in place is the cost and workload required to adjust computer systems. Professor Tetsutaro Uehara of Ritsumeikan University, a specialist in information systems, estimates that it would take about four years and hundreds of billions of yen to do just that. Let’s send ‘em a bill. ;-) I rather imagine the professor has a point. Yeah, code that uses tzdb would be easy to update. But Japan is likely chock-full of locally grown code that has never had to cope with any situation other than "JST = UTC+9", and probably hasn't got any generality whatsoever about its timestamp handling.
I doubt the bewildered professor has enough background in industrial, commercial, and retail software development and deployment practices, infrastructure and apps to make a reasonable estimate. Recall the posts we've had about squishing and updating tzdbs in firmware: major embedded libraries support tzdb and locales (although they can usually be omitted), get contributions from the chip makers who use them, and BSD and TZ code can be freely leveraged to support DST. As usual, the main problem will be updating or replacing software and systems not designed to be updated because of assumptions: like pre-Y2K, and 2005-2007 for the North American DST dates rule changes.
-- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
According to slideshows published by the professors, the point is that, - In most other countries, there are DST from before computers and connected machines become widespread, so most of foreign systems have designed with summer time in mind, however same cannot be said to Japan, and there are no recent examples of developed country that move into DST from no DST so there are no example of how far fetched could it become - 4-5 years time given is the time to adjust important national and regional system as well as systems of businesses that support important infrastructure systems. From detecting the necessity, to obtain the funding, design, application of fix, test, to actual implementation, he estimated 4-5 years would be needed while private companies would need at least 3. And then in individual home it's estimated there will also have many unsupported machines that cannot be forced to replace so it would probably take something like a ten year cycle to replace them all. - The estimated cost is based on the need of checking and adjusting all the systems, which he estimated that 30 billion yen would be needed just to detect and fix problems in important infrastructure systems and private corporates will spend more than that to do the same to their own system. And then he mentioned that when people are busy fixing legacy systems to support summer time, they will not have any extra efforts that can be used to catch up with new innovative trends across the word, like AI, IoT, Big data. And that's not to mention workers in Japan already have extra workloads like supporting the new era name and account for the sales tax hike. - Even for systems that have been set to automatically update, it is still not sure whether they are using a correct automatic setting that can actually update accordingly (especially with the proposal including double summer time) - If Y2K situation is anything to learn from, then that is there will be a lot of malware that will spread in the name of 'help fixing your "____" to support DST' when all kind of patches for different machines pop up, and that might even enable cyber terrorism
* Tom Lane:
I rather imagine the professor has a point. Yeah, code that uses tzdb would be easy to update. But Japan is likely chock-full of locally grown code that has never had to cope with any situation other than "JST = UTC+9", and probably hasn't got any generality whatsoever about its timestamp handling.
At last some of this code has to be touched for the new era name anyway, and *that* work is supposed to complete within a few months. (The last era transition was in 1989.)
2018-08-19 19:23, Florian Weimer wrote:
* Tom Lane:
I rather imagine the professor has a point. Yeah, code that uses tzdb would be easy to update. But Japan is likely chock-full of locally grown code that has never had to cope with any situation other than "JST = UTC+9", and probably hasn't got any generality whatsoever about its timestamp handling.
At last some of this code has to be touched for the new era name anyway, and *that* work is supposed to complete within a few months. (The last era transition was in 1989.)
That's for local calendar, not clocks that are fixed to local standard time.
Florian Weimer wrote:
some of this code has to be touched for the new era name anyway, and *that* work is supposed to complete within a few months. (The last era transition was in 1989.)
Conversely, this could overload programmers responsible for time-and-date code, and these people are reasonably-scarce resources in Japan. This point was made today in the Yomiuri Shumbun: "If the practice is indeed implemented as an experiment, starting in 2019, this would coincide with the systemic renewal that will accompany the scheduled change in the name of an era next spring. Burdens on the parts of companies and employees are likely to become heavier." http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0004670471 A bigger problem, to my mind, is another point made in the same piece. Japan has a long tradition of "You don't stop working until it's dark" which meant that the last time DST was tried, many people simply had to work another hour every day. This led to so much public discontent that DST was scrapped. What would be different this time?
On 2018-08-19 11:29, Paul Eggert wrote:
Florian Weimer wrote:
some of this code has to be touched for the new era name anyway, and *that* work is supposed to complete within a few months. (The last era transition was in 1989.) Conversely, this could overload programmers responsible for time-and-date code, and these people are reasonably-scarce resources in Japan. This point was made today in the Yomiuri Shumbun: "If the practice is indeed implemented as an experiment, starting in 2019, this would coincide with the systemic renewal that will accompany the scheduled change in the name of an era next spring. Burdens on the parts of companies and employees are likely to become heavier." http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0004670471
A bit of a compilation of other opinions with no attempt at analysis or conclusion. If folks are poking at date-time code to support another Era, announced with only a few months notice (like some other events), and can finish within a few months, adding support for DST at the same time using existing tested mechanisms, should not add significantly to the dev or QA effort, or increase the project time frame. The possibilities for those who choose to reinvent the wheel (badly) are unlimited in every sense.
A bigger problem, to my mind, is another point made in the same piece. Japan has a long tradition of "You don't stop working until it's dark" which meant that the last time DST was tried, many people simply had to work another hour every day. This led to so much public discontent that DST was scrapped. What would be different this time?
If double DST was applied, would these people just be working two hours longer, with less time for social or leisure viewing? Is the culture such that these workers would not be at home watching the Olympics in any case, or would most or some be watching it in bars with their boss and colleagues after dark? So who would have time to attend events, or are companies expected to buy blocks of discounted tickets, and allow, encourage, or compel workers and/or their families to attend? -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
participants (6)
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Brian Inglis -
Florian Weimer -
Howard Hinnant -
Paul Eggert -
Phake Nick -
Tom Lane