Re: RFC 99 (v2) Standardize ALL Perl platforms on UNIX epoch

[Nathan Wiger]

> Either one or both of:
>         Perl <-> Perl cross system will break.
>         Perl <-> other program same system will break.
> 
> Pick your poison. I'd rather have cross system break. But if the
> epoch were available then an adjustment could be made intellegently.

I'd take choice (b). I want to be able to write the exact same Perl code
and have it deployed on multiple platforms.

There's no reason we couldn't introduce a systime() function that
returned the true system time. Then time() would always return UNIX
epoch time. This seems way more consistent than having time return
different values, making you rewrite your code or put ugly OS checks in
your code. 

So,

   1. Make all the time/date functions consistent cross-platform

   2. Add a systime() for those situations where you really need
      that specific system's epoch time

-Nate