[rb-general] [PATCH] Document timestamp clamping

[Chris Lamb]

Dear Daniel,

> The current spec talks only about "current" time, but doesn't mention
> "clamping".  We've found that "clamping" is an important concept (see
> the attached examples) in practice, so it should be included in the
> spec.

Firstly, thank you for the suggestion.

However, whilst I like the clamp-mtime approach and I also believe it is
important I strongly think specifications like this should not really
mention solutions, both in terms of keeping it entirely single-focus,
avoiding bikeshedding (!), and it also means that that solutions can be
experimented with and evolved elsewhere with less friction. (eg. on our
Examples wiki page).

I think the "success" of SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH can be somewhat attributed
to the spec being very easily to follow for the overwhelming majority
of case.

Whilst I would totally concede that clamping is not strictly a "solution"
and there exist examples where it is appropriate to use it over forcing
stuff (as you list), it's a little too far along the "practical" spectrum
for me to entirely comfortable with adding this to the spec.

Anyway, thanks again.


Regards,

-- 
      ,''`.
     : :'  :     Chris Lamb
     `. `'`      lamby at debian.org / chris-lamb.co.uk
       `-