[Python-Dev] proposal: add basic time type to the standard library

[Jim Fulton]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> 
> > Does this imply leap second hell, or will we
> > simply be vague about expectations?
> 
> IMO, leap seconds should be ignored.  Time stands still during a leap
> second.  Consider this a BDFL pronouncement if you wish. :-)
> 
> > I'd also like to see simple access methods for year,
> > month, day, hours, minutes, and seconds,
> 
> The timetuple() method provides access to all of these
> simultaneously.  Isn't that enough? 

>From a minimalist point of view, yet, but from a usability point 
of view, no.

> t.year() could be spelled as
> t.timetuple()[0]. 

Yes, but t.year() is a lot more readable.

> I expect that usually you'd request several of
> these together anyway, in order to do some fancy formatting, so the
> timetuple() approach makes sense.

I find the time tuples to be really inconvenient. I *always*
have to slice off the parts I don't want, which I find annoying.

Hm, now that I mention the extra parts, it seems kind of silly
to make implementors of the type come up with weekday, julian day, and
a daylight-savings flag. This time format is really biased by
the C time library, which is fine for a module that wraps the C library
but seems a bit silly for a standard date-time interface.

> > with date parts
> > being one based and time parts being zero based.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean here.

Years, months, and days should start from 1.
Hours, minutes and seconds should start from 0.

One confusion I often have with time tuples is that I know
too much about C's time struct, which numbers months from 0
and which has years since 1900. 

Jim

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