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The Long, Painful History of Time (1999)

Erik Naggum Naggum Software Oslo, Norway ABSTRACT The programming language Common Lisp offers a few functions to support the concept of time as humans experience it, including GET-UNIVERSAL-TIME, ENCODE-UNIVERSAL-TIME, DECODE-UNIVERSAL-TIME, and GET-DECODED-TIME. These functions assume the existence of a timezone and a daylight saving time regime, such that they can support the usual expression of time in the environment in which a small number of real-life applications run.

On the Internet, NTP> (the Network TIme Protocol) keeps fully connected systems in sync, and most telecommunications and energy providers have amazingly accurate clocks, but mere mortals are still left with alarming inaccuracies. In the old calendar, the leap day was added at the end of the year, as makes perfect sense, when the month was already short, but now it is squeezed into the middle of the first quarter, complicating all sorts of calculations, and affecting how much people work. Many thanks to Pernille Nylehn for reading and commenting on drafts, nudging me towards finishing this work, and for taking care of my cat Xyzzy so I could write this in peace and deliver it at LUGM '99 without worrying about the little furball's constant craving for attention, but also without both their warmth and comfort when computers simply refuse to behave rationally.

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