Re: [art] Predictable Internet Time

[Joe Touch <[e-mail]>]

Hi, Nico,


On 3/28/2017 11:43 AM, Nico Williams wrote:
> 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 defines only POSIX time right now, FWIW.

AFAICT, wouldn't specing Unix interfaces to the different times below be
out of scope for the IETF?

>  - 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