Bidwatcher port

[Annelise Anderson]

On Fri, 5 Sep 2003, Matthew Hunt wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 04, 2003 at 08:32:02PM -0700, Annelise Anderson wrote:
> 
> > It was my impression that TIMEFUDGE is a product of the patch and is not
> > in the original code.  
> 
> Sure, the term TIMEFUDGE does not appear in the source, but there is
> a hard-coded 300 second delay.  The point of adding TIMEFUDGE is to allow
> you to change this to 0 or some other value, instead of being stuck with
> 300.  Take a look at the patch:
> 
> -    timeDiff += 5*60;
> +    timeDiff += TIMEFUDGE;
> 
> This is around line 4346 of bidwatcher.cpp.  The 5*60 second delay is
> in the original code, it just doesn't have a name.
> 
> > I've built it outside the ports collection at times and gotten no
> > delay.
> 
> The delay appears to be used if and only if the local clock cannot be
> synchronized to the eBay clock.  If the original code does not use a 300 s
> fudge, it's because the clock was synchronized correctly.  In that case
> neither will the port.  When TIMEFUDGE is set to 300, the original code
> and the port's code work identically in all cases.
> 
> Note that TIMEFUDGE (or the original code's hardcoded delay) are only
> used if you see this message:
> 
>     showError("WARNING: Couldn't reach eBay, using local clock."
>               " Do not depend on times or sniping.");
> 
> > Five minutes is enormous--it gives your opponents plenty of
> > time to outbid you; and that's the whole idea of sniping--coming in
> > at the end with a bid to which no one has time to respond.
> 
> I agree.  That's why I added TIMEFUDGE and even the comment:
> 
>     // In the era of accurate timekeeping, it's not clear that this is
>     // necessary, so we allow TIMEFUDGE to be set when building the
>     // FreeBSD port.  -mph   
> 
> If you don't change TIMEFUDGE from 300, the behavior of the port is
> identical to the original code.  I gave the number a name (TIMEFUDGE) so
> that you can set it to 0 for more sensible behavior.
> 
> Matt
> 
I agree then that it should be left just as it is.  

	Annelise 

-- 
Annelise Anderson
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