[Python-Dev] Drop the new time.wallclock() function?

[Nadeem Vawda]

A summary of the discussion so far, as I've understood it:

- We should have *one* monotonic/steady timer function, using the
  sources described in Victor's original post.

- By default, it should fall back to time.time if a better source is
  not available, but there should be a flag that can disable this
  fallback for users who really *need* a monotonic/steady time source.

- Proposed names for the function:
  * monotonic
  * steady_clock
  * wallclock
  * realtime

- Proposed names for the flag controlling fallback behavior:
  * strict (=False)
  * fallback (=True)
  * monotonic (=False)


For the function name, I think monotonic() and steady_clock() convey
the purpose of the function much better than the other two; the term
"wallclock" is actively misleading, and "realtime" seems ambiguous.

For the flag name, I'm -1 on "monotonic" -- it sounds like a flag to
decide whether to use a monotonic time source always or never, while
it actually decides between "always" and "sometimes". I think "strict"
is nicer than "fallback", but I'm fine with either one.

Cheers,
Nadeem