[JDEV] Message timestamping - hybrid format

[Daniel Arbuckle]

If you're going to do dates like that, the obvious choice would be to use
the Julian Day Number. The algorithms are well documented, the standard
predates computers by centuries and is widely understood, and date
calculations are easy.

Daniel

On Sat, 9 Oct 1999, Zoom Juice wrote:
> Cleaner yet:
> 
> <transport id="jabber:pagertransport://pager.mot.com/"
>        recv="179243:17:18:12"
>        sent="179243:17:19:02">
>        Your Unique Caption Here
> <transport>
> 
> In the example above the day is represented by a decimal day number, counting
> from some arbitrary date and the time in hh:mm:ss.  The rationale is that date
> calculations are complex, and are usually done wrong (trust me).  Furthermore,
> the date doesn't change often... as far as eyeballing the message goes, you
> only have to remember one day number per day.  Arguably easier than remembering
> the day of the month, IMHO.  On the other hand, time calculations based on 
> hh:mm:ss are straightforward and not so accident prone.  The hybrid format
> in the example above strikes a nice balance between machine-readable and
> human-readable, relatively compact, very simple to parse, and easy to do
> arithmetic on.  Note that by adding colons on the right, the precision can
> be increased at will.