On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:59 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncogh...@gmail.com> wrote: > datetime.datetime > > - real problem with the idea is that not all timestamps can be easily > made absolute (e.g. some APIs may return "time since system started" > or "time since process started")
I think this is an argument for returning the appropriate one of datetime or timedelta from all of these functions: users need to keep track of whether they've got an absolute time, or an offset from an unspecified starting point, and that's a type-like distinction. > - the complexity argument used against timedelta also applies A plain number of seconds is superficially simpler, but it forces more complexity onto the user, who has to track what that number represents. datetime and timedelta are even available from a C module, which I had expected to be a blocking issue. The biggest problem I see with using datetime and timedelta for everything is that switching to them is very backwards-incompatible. Jeffrey _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
