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Re: Issue: When does Time start?

This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 19 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 19 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.



>>>>> On Fri, 17 Mar 2000 11:07:32 -0500, "Will Fitzgerald" <fitzgerald@xxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

> Does anyone see any reason to specify, as part of the SRFI, when
> 'time' starts? Marc Feely didn't like 1/1/1900 for a starting point
> (prefers 1/1/1970), for example. The starting point clearly effects
> the implementation, or vice versa, and I'd rather give this one to
> the implementers.

I agree it should not be specified, apart from to say that the range
of times should at least include 1900.01.01 -> 2001.01.01.  Even
better I would like it to say: 1900.01.01 -> 100 years in the future.

I see no reason to base it on the 1970 Unix epoch, as you won't be
representing it as a 32 bit fixnum anyway, so you'll have to convert
regardless.

1760 might make some sense as a guaranteed minimum date.  Earlier than
that, and you get into calendar/religious questions (see the ``man
cal'' page on Unix).

../Dave