The Timing of Time

stéphane ducasse ducasse at iam.unibe.ch
Wed Apr 19 14:29:48 UTC 2006


You should send a paper to ESUG!!!!
This way we will have the one of hernan and yours.

Stef

On 19 avr. 06, at 03:51, Alan Lovejoy wrote:

> Ralph: "Date is a basic abstraction.  Getting it right is  
> important, and so
> far we (the entire programming community) haven't gotten it right."
>
> Yes, exactly so. And the issue is becoming more important, not  
> less, due to
> the ever-shrinking "global village."  How many decades remain  
> before the
> issues become interplanetery, and not just international, is an  
> interesting
> question to ponder (I've considered the implications of interplanetary
> travel for date/time software, but haven't put much effort or code  
> into any
> solutions yet--that might be premature at this point.)
>
> When all is said and done, it's usually the case that a lot more  
> has been
> said than done.  That's one reason I implemented Chronos according  
> to my
> best understanding of how dates/times ought to work, instead of  
> attempting
> to socialize a consensus in the Smalltalk community for the design  
> of a
> date/time library.  A picture of herding cats comes to mind. Or a  
> camel.
>
> Nevertheless, one can always learn from others.  In fact, I would  
> greatly
> appreciate feedback on the design/implementation/API of Chronos.   
> I'm sure
> that Hernan, Brent and David T. would like feedback on their work  
> also.
>
> Ralph: "You guys ought to write papers on your Date packages.  
> Someone ought
> to write a paper comparing them."
>
> Ayup.  In fact, I've decided to put a halt to coding Chronos and start
> writing documentation.  John Dougan and I started to write a paper  
> several
> months ago about the model of time on which the Chronos  
> architecture, design
> and implementation rests, but we both got sidetracked on/by other  
> matters.
>
> It's "time" to put the theoretical/philosophical discussion back on  
> the
> front burner. As for comparisons of the alternatives on offer,  
> that's a job
> best left to some independent analyst, I would think.
>
> --Alan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of  
> Ralph
> Johnson
> Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 5:38 PM
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Subject: Re: The Timing of Time
>
> It is interesting to me 1) how much interest there is in dates and  
> 2) how
> apologetic people seem to be about it.  Date is a basic abstraction.
> Getting it right is important, and so far we (the entire programming
> community) haven't gotten it right.  Discussions like this are  
> important.
> You guys ought to write papers on your Date packages.
> Someone ought to write a paper comparing them.
>
> Maybe Maxi Taborda is going to do this for his MS thesis?
>
> My favorite book on calenders (I haven't read very many) is  
> "Calendrical
> Calculations" by Reingold and Dershowitz.  It is about dates and  
> not time.
>
> -Ralph Johnson
>
>
>




More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list