Jim Jewett <jimjjew...@gmail.com> added the comment:

(1)  How does the user control (or even find out) which clock is used by 
time.steady()?

If the answer is time.steady(clock=QueryPerformanceCounter) then there is no 
need for strict=?, but then I'm not sure what the point of time.steady itself 
is.

I had been assuming that time.steady() relied on the best clock it could find, 
which shouldn't normally change on a specific machine, let alone within a 
single process.  In that case, exposing the actual clock (or its name) as an 
attribute seems better than a boolean 
"complain_if_my_machine_is_not_good_enough" parameter.


(2)  That fragment from the C++ standard suggests that "MAY NOT" ought to have 
been replaced by the unambiguous "MUST NOT".  I do not think that python should 
repeat the editorial error.

(3)  Even leaving aside the question of which clock is actually provided, I 
still prefer a change in wording.  My trailing paragraph might change with the 
API, but the rationale for:

"""Return elapsed seconds as a floating point number.  

The start time is undefined, so only differences between calls are meaningful.  
steady() is the best clock for profiling response time, as opposed to CPU usage.
"""

includes:

"elapsed" ==> time since something, as opposed to absolute time.  

If practicality and efficiency weren't important, I would even suggest that the 
function return an opaque object that supported only ordering and subtraction 
(returning a timedelta).

There are enough time-related modules/classes/functions/etc that people *will* 
get confused; the name "steady" isn't obvious enough. Including the intended 
use case in the docstring gives people a fighting chance.

----------

_______________________________________
Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue14318>
_______________________________________
_______________________________________________
Python-bugs-list mailing list
Unsubscribe: 
http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com

Reply via email to