time since the epoch

[Matt Hellige]

[Keith Wansbrough <Keith.Wansbrough@cl.cam.ac.uk>]
> Stefan Karrmann <sk@mathematik.uni-ulm.de> writes:
> 
> > A sound base for a Time implementation should use TAI (temps atomique
> > international), c.f. <http://cr.yp.to/libtai.html>.
> 
> I disagree; I think UTC is quite sufficient, and will match the users'
> expectations much better.  (executive summary: UTC is the time on your
> watch (+/- timezone of course), TAI is behind by a few seconds, and
> this difference changes each time there's a new leap second).
> 
> However, the reference above is not to TAI, but to a library called
> libtai.  I don't know anything about this; Stefan, maybe you could
> tell us some more?
> 

I know it's not really on topic, but for those of us who are ignorant
of the details of time standards, does anyone have a pointer to a
decent conceptual (i.e., non-software specific) overview of the
subject? Leap seconds, etc., are all pretty much new to me, but I am
curious.

Matt

-- 
Matt Hellige                  matt@immute.net
http://matt.immute.net