Re: proposed getitimer and setitimer functions

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

Marius Vollmer <address@hidden> writes:

> Fortunately, setitimer is not about the calendar, it only deals with
> durations of time that don't need to unambiguously represent an
> absolute point in time, world wide.  So we are only faced with
> precision issues.  Are microseconds safe for the future?  For a 1GHz
> processor, one microsecond are 1000 clock cycles so I can imagine that
> we want to go below one microsecond for profiling in the near future
> (not with the interpreter...)

We have no precision issues.  itimers should use intervals specified
by numbers, and because *numbers* are not all integers, it should just
do the right thing.  Pick a scale (*any* scale), and then allow
numbers (*any numbers*) to specify the duration of the interval.

Ideally, however, you would specify a "time interval" object (which is
what you get if you subtract two times).  

You might want a separate interface which tells the user what the
precision of the interval timers is, but that's a separate question.