On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 12:55 PM Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen < [email protected]> wrote:
@Marc: Thanks for helping me to get my interface right and for the > "seconds+" naming suggestion. > I'd like to hold the trailing-plus convention for generic functions, so that e.g. `length` continues to be for lists only and `length+` (pronounced "length-plus") is generic over traversables. It seems to me that "add-seconds" is satisfactory. However, some account should be given of the minimum granularity of time objects. Seconds are far too long; for example, Posix terminal timeouts are measured in deciseconds, and the minimum resolution of a Posix real-time clock is 20 ms (probably derived from 50 Hz power; 60 Hz power will provide 16.66... ms resolution). > > As for (nanoseconds-from-now N) I think it is sufficient to just use > seconds. In 20 years nanoseconds might be “old school” and you really want > picoseconds, in 50 years femtoseconds, etc. > That seems extremely unlikely, as a light-femtosecond is about the size of an average virus. We are not, even in 50 years, going to have computational components that small. > > I would be fine with just seconds; others have voiced the wish for > > nanoseconds, including John. > The Posix clock routines return seconds and nanoseconds, though that does not mean the clock actually ticks in nanoseconds.
