Re: encode-time vs decode-time

[Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>]

Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> I thought it would be good to introduce a new function, say
> `get-current-time', that could have our new signature.  We'd then
> deprecate `current-time'

It's not just current-time; it's also encode-time, file-attributes, 
directory-files-and-attributes, visited-file-modtime, current-idle-time, 
process-attributes, get-internal-run-time, make-frame-visible, time-add, 
time-subtract, and no doubt other primitives written in C that make Lisp 
timestamps visible to user code, along with the many functions written in Lisp 
(e.g., time-since) that call these primitives and give Lisp timestamps to users. 
We'd have to come up with new names for all these functions, and all the 
user-visible variables these functions store into, and deprecate all the old 
names. And during this deprecation period, Emacs-defined and user-defined code 
would have to support both old- and new-format timestamps since code could 
generate either.

Of course it would be possible but it'll be easier for everyone concerned if we 
just bite the bullet at some point - not in the next version of course, but 
eventually, with an option to not-bite-the-bullet-quite-yet for people who need 
that option.