On 23.05.2016, at 21:43, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Tobias,
> 
> On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 11:58 AM, Tobias Pape <Das.Linux at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> On 23.05.2016, at 19:37, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi All,
> >
> >     I see that access to the microsecond clock is called "microsecondClockValue".  This name is wrong. It derives from millisecondClockValue which was indeed a value. The millisecond clock started from zero on every image startup and wrapped around every 45 days or so.  The microsecond clock is quite different; it is an absolute clock whose zero is midnight on January 1st 1901, the start of the 20th century (damn those monks). So "Value" should be omitted from the selector.
> 
> Isn't it still a value? I frankly do not understand the distinction here..
> Even more, "microsecondClock" doesn't hand me a "clock" object… :)
> 
> The Smalltalk-80 code has always maintained the distinction:
> 
> Time secondClock
> Time millisecondClockValue
> 
>  The former is a clock, measuring time from a fixed point in history.  the latter is a counter starting from an arbitrary point.  I find it a very useful distinction.  Our current microsecond time is a clock, not a value.
> 

This may be due to English not being my native language, but "clock" for me has always
the "feel" of a thing/device/object, not a number/value I could read off that thing.

So asking for 
	Time microsecondClock
sounds to me like "give me that clock thing that counts in microseconds". I might ask
that to halt, rewind, or tell me its value….

But if the value-able interpretation is more common than I had though, why not? :)

Best regards
	-Tobias