Russia autumn 1996 DST patch

Андрей Чернов (Andrey A. Chernov) ache at nagual.ru
Tue Oct 1 06:25:25 UTC 1996


> What do the abbreviations `MSK' and `MSD' stand for?  If they're
> English already, then we should definitely change the database back.
> But I have the vague impression that they are Russian phrases or
> abbreviations.

MSK/MSD not English, they are Russian/German, origins are:
Moskva (Russian) and
Moskau (German)

The main problems with your new names is that they comes too late:
MSK/MSD already used here approx. 10 years!

Don't be English-centric, be Latin(ASCII)-centric instead.
Really, if national name is
1) pure ASCII
2) widely used for long time
it is enough reasons to use it.

>    Such names never used here.  Please back out this change ...
> 
> If `MSK' and `MSD' are not English, it would be more consistent to add
> a zone `MSK' for backward compatibility instead, as follows; would this do?

I suspect backward capability isn't enough. Users becomes very confused
seeing MOST instead of MSK which they see for many years. Date parsers
becomes very confused too. Your change just breaks all Russian time-parsing
software.

Please, note that all I say is about Moscow time zone only, I don't know
situation for other Russian zones abbreviations.

-- 
Andrey A. Chernov
<ache at nagual.ru>
http://www.nagual.ru/~ache/



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