[tz] [PATCH 0/2] Follow Australian common usage and update [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[Peter Stagg]

I'd like to roundly and whole-heartedly applauded the changes being made in this patch and I can't wait to see this in production. I'm going to be alerting as many developers and sys-admins etc. here at the Bureau as I can and I expect a massive sigh of relief.

I could say many things about the background that has led to this point but most of that is water under the bridge.

One thing I will say is that the tz db itself has contributed to the confusion over common usage in Australia. One of the methods used to survey common usage I've noted is the use of search engines to look at the frequency of terms such as EST vs EDT etc. The problem is that web developers etc. (even here at the Bureau) will use the tz db for applications without thinking about how the time will show during daylight savings periods (after all its Christmas in Australia and we're all on holiday) and thus they will show the EST abbreviation until some observant person (usually member of the public) contacts us and points out the discrepancy then we run around like chooks with our heads cut off try to find and fix the problem or throw our hands in the air and wait for daylight savings to end when the problem seems to fix itself. So you can see that web searches for common usage of these terms are likely to be skewed by the assumption inherent in the tz db to begin with.

I look forward to these changes being put into production ASAP. 

Peter Stagg | Web Developer Radar Systems

Web Systems, Platform Services, 
Information Technology Services, 
Information Systems & Services Division,
Bureau of Meteorology
GPO Box 1289 Melbourne VIC 3001
Level 6, 700 Collins Street, Docklands VIC 3008
Tel: +61 3 9669 4232 | p.stagg at bom.gov.au
www.bom.gov.au

> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 00:46:55 -0700
> From: Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu>
> To: Russ Allbery <rra at stanford.edu>, Time Zone Mailing List
> 	<tz at iana.org>
> Subject: Re: [tz] [PATCH 0/2] Follow Australian common usage and
> 	update CST/CST to CST/CDT and EST/EST to EST/EDT etc
> 	[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
> Message-ID: <53B115EF.3030902 at cs.ucla.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
> 
> On 2013-04-12 Russ Allbery wrote:
> > I'm increasingly of the opinion that the tz database should just use
> > the most unambiguous abbreviations (AEST/AEDT) even if there isn't a
> > clear consensus in general usage.
> 
> I am tempted to agree, particularly since (prompted by Rich Tibbett's proposed patch on github) I finally got around to surveying
> general usage and it appears that there is a working (though by no means
> universal) consensus in Australia to use abbreviations like "AEST" and "AEDT", and furthmore, we appear to have been mistaken in our
> assumptions about abbreviation usage in the past.  Details are in the attached proposed patch, which I've pushed into the
> experimental tz version on github.  I couldn't resist adding a quote about the daylight-saving preferences of "chuckleheaded
> Queenslanders and straw-chewing yokels from the West".
<delitia>
 [Peter Stagg]