title: Is storing a Unix timestamp a bad idea in the long term
body: <p>I've recently started working on a new application and I need to be able to compare times that the user has been active so basically my logic will be something like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>func pseudo (user string) {
      v := GET Timestamp FROM users;
  
      if currentTimestamp - 1800 &lt; dbTimestamp
          // Do something
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I've though about using Unix timestamps, in specific the number of seconds. However I'm not sure if storing this will become a problem as it only grows and I realize it will take a while to add more digits it does not feel like it's the best for performance reasons. Is storing and comparing a Unix timestamp a good idea for long term applications?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Side note:</strong></p>
  
  <p>My application is written in go so while I can store datetime, I have to extract the datetime from the database and attempt to use the atrocious layout numbers and it becomes more complicated attempting to format it to work with the layout numbers.</p>