Simplify API to only expect/return unix timestamp for dates

[mcMickJuice]

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• [ ] Bug
• [X] Feature Request
• [ ] Question

This library accepts a moment object, Date or unix timestamp in some cases...but not other cases. Moreover, throughout the app, the code expects dates to be a Moment object...sometimes. I'd like to standardize datetime and require that the values all be unix timestamps.

Pros:

• simpler API
• less confusion in the code whether a time is timestamp or Moment object
• less dependent on Moment.js

Cons:

• possible performance issues marshaling from ms to date?
• lots of code to update
• places onus on user to marshal from and to Moment (or Date object) when passing in dates to the library

[gachavez]

We are moving away from using moment as much as we can because of performance reasons. I would be in favor of unix timestamps.

[mcMickJuice]

Just curious, what kind of performance issues did you face? What actions or situations did moment perform poorly?

[jabidof]

Hi, We're using date-fns that uses the standard Date object. Maybe that is a way.

[mcMickJuice]

I like the approach that this library takes:

/* eslint-disable */
import MuiPickersUtilsProvider from 'material-ui-pickers/utils/MuiPickersUtilsProvider';
// pick a time library utils to inject into the app
import MomentUtils from 'material-ui-pickers/utils/moment-utils';
import DateFnsUtils from 'material-ui-pickers/utils/date-fns-utils';
import LuxonUtils from 'material-ui-pickers/utils/luxon-utils';

function App() {
  return (
    <MuiPickersUtilsProvider utils={DateFnsUtils}>
      <Root />
    </MuiPickersUtilsProvider>
  );
}

render(<App />, document.querySelector('#app'));

The library would expose some standard providers (like the ones in material-ui-pickers). Users could also inject their own, would just need to define the interface.