xtime/libtai/"right"

[D. J. Bernstein]

Bradley White writes:
> I think if we all stipulate that some form of "display UTC" is the
> only representation that should be stored or forwarded,

You expect high-volume logging tools and network servers to convert
every timestamp to year-month-day-hour-minute-second-subsecond?

And you expect every program that subtracts timestamps to convert this
year-month-day-hour-minute-second-subsecond back to numeric time?

What exactly is the benefit of these conversions?

The UNIX approach is different. Numeric timestamps are used whenever
possible. Programs that don't talk to users don't have to worry about
complicated civil times. ``Keep it simple, stupid.''

> [Personally, I would
> just use an ISO string and eat the conversion and storage costs.]

libtai supports ISO format, of course, but you're kidding yourself if
you expect UNIX filesystems to start storing inode times in that format.

---Dan
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