Concerning Time.TimeDiff
Dean Herington
heringto@cs.unc.edu
Wed, 18 Jun 2003 13:09:00 -0400
"Ketil Z. Malde" wrote:
> "Simon Marlow" <simonmar@microsoft.com> writes:
>
> > - ClockTime and TimeDiff are now represented as
> > Integer picoseconds only. Hence, they also now derive
> > Num, Enum, and Integral.
>
> I think this is the most aesthetically pleasing. From a practical
> point of view, we should perhaps consider the possible need to
> represent times of higher resolution, and the practical need to use of
> much lower resolution. Division by 10^12, or the need to push really
> large integers around isn't going to end up being costly, is it?
Representing times as `Rational` seems more elegant:
* It handles widely varying needs for resolution nicely.
* It avoids choosing picoseconds as the finest possible resolution.
What are the downsides to `Rational`? And if those downsides are serious
enough, it would seem that the next best approach would be to represent times
abstractly.
Dean