Unix timestamps are awesome. They're so simple, so easily stored, transported, manipulated, and understood by the computer. They're easily convertable into written formats, yet they separate the time storage and arithmetic from the messiness of leap years, leap seconds, timezones, daylight savings time, and even Y2K. (Yes, 32-bit timestamps have a similar problem that they will wrap around in 2038, but the concept is trivially extendable to 64-bit.)You still have to worry about timezones and leapyears and things when converting to/from written date formats, but you're guaranteed that once you've got a timestamp, it's safe from those annoyances, so it won't "go bad" or be re-interpretable later.I remember doing low-level manipulation of FAT filesystem entries years ago. They store the modification date as a series of tiny 4, 5, 6 or 7-bit fields for each of the seconds, minutes, hours, date, month, year. Besides being awkward to manipulate, they waste bits, only store the seconds to 2-second resolution, exist in an undefined timezone, and for all that, still take up 4 bytes, as much as the equivalent Unix timestamp.
homemadejamFeb 2, 2009
I want to watch it switch over, and see if I can get a print screen!
tj111Feb 3, 2009
At least it's not on 12-21-2012
netneutralityFeb 3, 2009
Unix timestamps are awesome. They're so simple, so easily stored, transported, manipulated, and understood by the computer. They're easily convertable into written formats, yet they separate the time storage and arithmetic from the messiness of leap years, leap seconds, timezones, daylight savings time, and even Y2K. (Yes, 32-bit timestamps have a similar problem that they will wrap around in 2038, but the concept is trivially extendable to 64-bit.)You still have to worry about timezones and leapyears and things when converting to/from written date formats, but you're guaranteed that once you've got a timestamp, it's safe from those annoyances, so it won't "go bad" or be re-interpretable later.I remember doing low-level manipulation of FAT filesystem entries years ago. They store the modification date as a series of tiny 4, 5, 6 or 7-bit fields for each of the seconds, minutes, hours, date, month, year. Besides being awkward to manipulate, they waste bits, only store the seconds to 2-second resolution, exist in an undefined timezone, and for all that, still take up 4 bytes, as much as the equivalent Unix timestamp.
snirkelFeb 5, 2009
Also sweet shirts and stuff at <a class="user" href="http://www.cafepress.com/1234567890m">http://www.cafepress.com/1234567890m</a> :)
rkrauseFeb 13, 2009
Dugg! Also check out the last time we saw an occurrence like this: <a class="user" href="http://www.technumerology.com/">http://www.technumerology.com/</a>