In article <41FE033F.1080507@cql.com>, Seth Kurtzberg
If, say, I make two calls to read the current time, and both return the same value, what does that mean?
That's an interesting question. For "Unix time" that's not supposed to happen: successive calls must return strictly later times unless the clock has been set back by more than a certain amount. This only really becomes an issue for leap-seconds, when one is trying to set the clock back one second. In such a case, successive clock calls increment one tick until time has caught up. It might be helpful to have the platform-dependent clock resolution available as a value.
Clearly these are two different things.
Well, the system clock is just one of many sources for time values. The user might be dealing with times from some other clock, or measured times from a scientific experiment, or appointment times from a datebook, or phenomenon times from astronomical calculations. How should these all be represented?
The core of the time calculation can be shared by these two different types of time, but at the user level it needs to be clear whether a value is derived from the system clock, or is not. I don't see any way around the need for a different interface for each. The alternatives are unacceptable.
Wouldn't the user already know whether a value is derived from the system clock or not, from the program they write? -- Ashley Yakeley, Seattle WA