• Madrigal@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    10 days ago

    Imagine thinking that’ll be the biggest date-related computing problem for a galactic society.

    If you really want to make programmers despair, point out:

    • massive variations in day, month and year lengths on different worlds.
    • some worlds may not have “months” (no moons, or many moons).
    • ambiguous definition of “year” for multi-star systems.
    • days may be longer than years (hello Venus).
    • communication latency across interstellar distances.
    • tine dilation.
    • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneEnglish
      1·
      7 days ago

      Nah, all this is solved with star-dates. One of the Federation’s crowning achievements - Warp Drive is small potatoes compared to getting hundreds of delegates from as many different worlds to all agree on one calendar system that is not based on their own world’s orbit around its primary… Diplomatic impossibility, but they managed it.