Re: [art] Predictable Internet Time

[Nico Williams <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 11:21:02AM -0700, Joe Touch wrote:
> On 3/28/2017 8:13 AM, Tony Finch wrote:
> >> - One thing I'd like to add is 'uptime' or more general, monotonic time.
> > An interesting discussion re. compatible APIs for elapsed time:
> > https://github.com/golang/proposal/blob/master/design/12914-monotonic.md
> This is another example of the confusion that results when the time
> scale is not clearly indicated or defined. Having Go read the "system
> wall clock" is the source of the problem, and this doc explains a
> variety of solutions.

Better data types -and strong typing- are needed:

 - Unix-like TAI (seconds since epoch, admitting not leap seconds)
 - Unix-like UTC (seconds since epoch, with leap seconds)
    - both with variations like real versus integer, or seconds +
      microseconds, etc..
 - broken-down time without leap seconds
 - broken-down time with    leap seconds
 - formatted time (with a zone indicator to indicate whether UTC or TAI)
 - perhaps other forms

Then there's intervals.  Having variations on intervals based on whether
or not they admit leaps seems silly though, so intervals are a bit
easier.

Nico
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