Subject:
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Re: Web interface search results
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Wed, 25 Aug 1999 02:18:32 GMT
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Viewed:
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580 times
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In lugnet.admin.general, Larry Pieniazek <lar@voyager.net> writes:
> Do we REALLY need the precision that seconds bring us? :-)
>
> I'd vote for days or at least hours.
"Admiral, if we go by the book, like Lietennant Saavik, hours would seem
like days."[1]
> Even for a non human readable API like this one, go with data that's
> understandable to humans and let the machines keep the books straight.
Days are certainly human-readable and intuitive and okie-fine for relative
times expressed counting backward from "now," but what about absolute times?
What if you wanted to restrict a search between April 1, 1999 and April 7,
1999 inclusive?
Seconds since Days since
Time/Date stamp the epoch the epoch
-------------------------- ------------ --------------
April 1, 1999 00:00:00 GMT 922924800 10682
April 7, 1999 12:59:59 GMT 923529599 10688.99998843
April 8, 1999 00:00:00 GMT 923529600 10689
If the range is given as [a,b), then whole number days work fine. If the
range is given as [a,b], then fractional days like 10688.99998843 would be
needed. Or if you wanted to search from 6:00am to 6:00pm on some day, then
you'd also need fractional days.
In any case, is a number like 10682 really any more meaningful than
922924800? Sure, it's shorter...but that actually makes it more confusing
because it looks like something that's supposed to make sense but doesn't.
At least 922924800 doesn't look like it's supposed to make sense.
--Todd
[1] STII:TWOK ;-)
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Web interface search results
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| Do we REALLY need the precision that seconds bring us? :-) I'd vote for days or at least hours. Even for a non human readable API like this one, go with data that's understandable to humans and let the machines keep the books straight. (25 years ago, 24-Aug-99, to lugnet.admin.general)
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