[tahoe-dev] [tahoe-lafs] #1133: don't claim to provide better semantics of timestamps than Python claims to provide

[tahoe-lafs]

#1133: don't claim to provide better semantics of timestamps than Python claims to
provide
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     Reporter:  zooko          |       Owner:  somebody 
         Type:  defect         |      Status:  new      
     Priority:  minor          |   Milestone:  undecided
    Component:  documentation  |     Version:  1.7.0    
   Resolution:                 |    Keywords:           
Launchpad Bug:                 |  
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Comment (by warner):

 Please, let's spend as little time on this as possible. I don't want us
 (or our users) to get distracted with the list of ways in which "time" is
 a complex topic.

 What's wrong with just saying "standard unix time (seconds since epoch)"?
 That sends the following messages to the following audiences:

  * non-specialists: "ah, ok, no timezones, behaves just like everything
 else on every other computer I've used"
  * specialists: "ugh, it's that same slightly-broken definition of 'time'
 that everyone else uses, if I want TAI then I have to consult a leap-
 second-lookup table. But hey, at least it's the *same* definition as
 everyone else uses: whatever heroics I must do to accurately compare
 timestamps for the files that I drunkenly upload to Tahoe during my london
 New Year's party (and occur during the "bewitching second") are exactly
 the same heroics that I have to do for everything else."

 In particular I *really* don't want readers of webapi.txt to be distracted
 by words like "ITU-R SG7" or "TAI" which will need length discursive
 inline explanations.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1133#comment:4>
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