Python time class

[Eugene.Leitl at lrz.uni-muenchen.de]

Eddie and Babs wrote:
> 
> I have always thought that the computing world lacks a mature and
> "standard", yet powerful model of time. I find it amazing that modern

What do you mean? There is this nifty SI unit called second. And
a set of prefixes, unfortunately not based on binary orders of magnitude.

> high-level languages like Python don't have time literals and built-in
> support for time calculations (we do, after all, have built-in support for
> complex number calculations, which are surely far less common than time
> calculations).

Huh? What's wrong with
10002354235341341223412452353234253450000L *
20342345235435335235323452353452352345545235345435L
for instance?
 
> The operative words here are "model of time". Any particular

Do you mean Newtonian time, or General Relativity? As an interpreted
language, I don't think Python needs corrections for travel and spacetime
curvature...

> Once a good time model exists, it will be largely independent of language

Perhaps I'm a bit dense, but I honestly fail to see your point.
You don't happen to refer to this completely arbitrary, 
comonnly deprecated 24/7/12/365 chunking scheme?

> and platform (and it would be typically Pythonic to have a Python version
> and also a C version for those who value the extra speed; if the model is
> sufficiently satisfying, then people will love to implement it in as many
> ways as possible).
> 
> A good time class would be another first for Python, but I suspect we will
> have to wait for another language to come along to do for time what Python
> did for subscripts.