Re: Time patch -- let's talk about it.

[Yves Pelletier <ypell@cam.org>]

On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Petr Stehlik wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Yves Pelletier wrote:
> 
> > As the subscribers to this list know,  I have made a survey of
> > the patches that were submitted to this list over the past
> > couple of years.  I intend, with the kind help of our resident
> > gurus,  to put together the next MiNTlibs, PL47.
> > 
> > The only major patch that raised a yet-unresolved objection
> > (from Petr), is Jerry Geiger's work on the library's time
> 
> Maybe I didn't understand the patch fully again, but my objection is 
> simple: most of us use the local time on our machines, I think. Will the 
> patched pl47 return the correct local time _without_ setting an env. 
> variable?

My understanding of it is as follows:

1. If you have a standalone MiNT box, and you wish to work in
local time, just set the internal clock to local time and be
happy.

2. If you have to work in coordination with other machines, or
want your machine hooked up to a network (possibly through NFS)
then it quickly becomes important that all machines working
together keep time in the same manner.  Then you might want to
have UTC as the basic time standard for your MiNT box's internal
clock.  Jerry's patch increases the MiNTlib's time routine's
ability to cope with that kind of environment.

Yves