[tz] Regression Tests and Revision Controls

Lester Caine lester at lsces.co.uk
Thu Aug 14 06:26:19 UTC 2014


On 13/08/14 18:28, Peter Ilieve wrote:
>> We have been trying to get to a point where the historic tz data is
>> > stable and acceptable to everyone. …
> I don’t think that is an achievable goal.
> 
> I write that as someone who broke the stability of UK historical data
> by finding a lot of the old Summer Time Orders and other regulations,
> work continued and pretty much finished by Joseph Myers.
> 
> That sort of thing will probably, and should, continue. Some keen
> youngster in Elbonia will discover the tz data (maybe her Linux box
> doesn’t follow a short-notice summer time change) and will remember
> that her grandfather was a senior official in the Elbonian ministry
> of the interior, and there is a trunk full of his old stuff in
> her parents’ attic. Before we know it we will have decades of
> accurate history for Elbonia, traceable to primary sources, but
> different from the current tz data. That is a Good Thing, beating
> stability any day.

That is perhaps my point. There is more and more historic data coming
out of the woodwork and some of the less developed countries see to be
doing a better job of scanning and indexing that material so it's freely
available. tzdist has to be based on a complete set of available
history, Something that has a cutoff of 1970 will not be acceptable at
which point the mechanism for recording and updating the underlying
documentation becomes more important.

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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