At first I thought it can be used for performance measurements. But it is said that std::chrono::high_resolution_clock may be not steady (is_steady may be false). It is also said that std::chrono::high_resolution_clock may even be an alias of std::chrono::system_clock which is generally not steady. So I can't measure time intervals with this type of clock because at any moment the clock may be adjusted and my measurements will be wrong.
At the same time I can't convert time points of std::chrono::high_resolution_clock to calendar time because it doesn't have to_time_t method. So I can't get the real time with this type of clock either.
Then what can std::chrono::high_resolution_clock be used for?
There are none.
Sorry, my bad.
If you are tempted to use high_resolution_clock, choose steady_clock instead. On libc++ and VS high_resolution_clock is a type alias of steady_clock anyway.
On gcc high_resolution_clock is a type alias of system_clock and I've seen more than one use of high_resolution_clock::to_time_t on this platform (which is wrong).
Do use <chrono>. But there are parts of <chrono> that you should avoid.
high_resolution_clock..count() and .time_since_epoch() unless there is no other way to get the job done.duration_cast unless the code won't compile without it, and you desire truncation-towards-zero behavior.