[ticker-dev] Timeout attribute

[Ian Lister]

Hi all,

It's been a while since we've made any progress on the v3 standard, so I'd
like to raise something that's been bugging me for a long time.

The choice of minutes for the units of the Timeout attribute is a bit odd.
The justification at the Ticker workshop for using minutes rather than
seconds (being a standard unit) was that Tickertape has no real need for
sub-minute precision, and minutes would do just fine.

However, Tickertape notifications often conform to other protocols, and a
timeout is a common concept across many protocols. Just because Ticker
doesn't feel the _need_ to use anything other than minutes doesn't mean
other protocols don't either.

We measure time arcanely, but the second is a much more sane unit than the
minute. All units smaller than it are decimal (saves you talking in
0.01666ths of a minute), and it's the standard international unit for
time.

I would like to propose that the Timeout attribute in Tickertape v3 be
measured in seconds. David has come up with a plan for avoiding problems
in the transition from the current draft implementations (which I'll leave
for him to present), and I can't see any reasons not to proceed (other
than not being bothered, and I'm certainly bothered :-).

Any comments?

Ian