[Tinyos-devel] Re: [Tinyos Core WG] time sync interfaces

[Philip Levis]

On Dec 18, 2007, at 8:04 PM, Janos Sallai wrote:

> In 90% of the cases, a sensor network is homogeneous: all devices are
> identical and programmed with the same program image. That is, the  
> issue
> of interoperability of different timestamping implementations  
> simply does
> not exist.

There's a difference between an artifact of deployment approaches  
today and application requirements. The former will change  
significantly as networks grow in complexity, longevity, and scale;  
the latter won't.


> Prescribing a common "network time precision" would put extra  
> burden on
> the implementer of a radio stack, and could require "extensive"
> computation in time-critical code.

At some point, you have to make a call. Of course, if the standard  
expected time precision cause extensive computation, an implementer  
might decide to not support it. It's just that having at least one  
statement of a standard (but not necessarily omnipresent) timing  
fidelity allows systems to extend and build on prior work, rather  
than the unmaintainable state of having to write everything yourself  
for every application.

Phil