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While he said as of August 23rd that he's agin working on ntimed, that's not reflected in GitHub updates: https://github.com/bsdphk/Ntimed https://github.com/bs

by hga 11y ago

While he said as of August 23rd that he's agin working on ntimed, that's not reflected in GitHub updates: https://github.com/bsdphk/Ntimed https://github.com/bsdphk/Ntimed And it bears mentioning that ESR has been working on GPSD for more than a decade (a daemon to extract accurate time from GPS receivers), and he sure sounds math literate to my not entirely untutored ears in various discussions over the years. Given the well known curse of total rewrites, which I've experienced myself, I too know who I'd bet my money on.

dfc 11y ago
Saying that GPSD is "a daemon to extract accurate time from GPS receivers" is a little misleading. GPSd primary function is to make "data on the location/course/velocity of the sensors available to...the host computer." It also has functionality to share data with ntpd but timekeeping is certainly not the primary purpose.
gonzo 11y ago
> "he sure sounds math literate" This is the standard ESR parlor trick. Eric took several courses in math and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/03/interview-with-eric-raymond.html http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/03/interview-with-eric-raym... "As a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania Raymond was immediately marked out as a potential math prodigy. Having found school insufficiently stretching for his above average talents, however, he lacked the necessary discipline or emotional maturity to cope with the demands of an undergraduate course, and after suffering a "math burnout" left without a degree." I'd put my money on phk. Every. Time.
- deleted 11y ago
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imglorp 11y ago
> ESR has been working on GPSD for more than a decade Timekeeping and location calculation is very easy to do clean sheet. That is, until you start to hit corner cases and exceptions and the realities of physical real world inputs like jitter and offset and dispersion (and those are just the grit that ntpq tells you about) and all the crud humans made up like leap seconds and calendrical calculations. My money's on the guy who's been blowing the grit out of the machine.
- hga 11y ago
  Oh, certainly. But from what I've followed of this project, that part of nntpd is, while complicated, healthy and neither needs serious modification nor is slated for much more than maybe adding tests. It's the huge pile of cruft that accumulated around the core that's getting worked on, or simply removed.

by hga 11y ago

dfc 11y ago

Saying that GPSD is "a daemon to extract accurate time from GPS receivers" is a little misleading. GPSd primary function is to make "data on the location/course/velocity of the sensors available to...the host computer." It also has functionality to share data with ntpd but timekeeping is certainly not the primary purpose.

gonzo 11y ago

> "he sure sounds math literate" This is the standard ESR parlor trick. Eric took several courses in math and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/03/interview-with-eric-raymond.html http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/03/interview-with-eric-raym... "As a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania Raymond was immediately marked out as a potential math prodigy. Having found school insufficiently stretching for his above average talents, however, he lacked the necessary discipline or emotional maturity to cope with the demands of an undergraduate course, and after suffering a "math burnout" left without a degree." I'd put my money on phk. Every. Time.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

imglorp 11y ago

> ESR has been working on GPSD for more than a decade Timekeeping and location calculation is very easy to do clean sheet. That is, until you start to hit corner cases and exceptions and the realities of physical real world inputs like jitter and offset and dispersion (and those are just the grit that ntpq tells you about) and all the crud humans made up like leap seconds and calendrical calculations. My money's on the guy who's been blowing the grit out of the machine.

hga 11y ago
Oh, certainly. But from what I've followed of this project, that part of nntpd is, while complicated, healthy and neither needs serious modification nor is slated for much more than maybe adding tests. It's the huge pile of cruft that accumulated around the core that's getting worked on, or simply removed.