[tz] What is the data product? (was: Fractional seconds in zic input)

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Mon, 05 Feb 2018 23:57:59 -0500
    From:        scs at eskimo.com (Steve Summit)
    Message-ID:  <2018Feb05.2357.scs.0001 at quinine.home>

  | In the beginning I would have thought that the project's product
  | was the database *and* the reference code, 

The reference code is a side issue, useful to show how to use the
data, and to assist in verifying its correctness, but it is the data that
matters.  Note: the data, not the format in which it is expressed, that's
an even smaller side issue.

The part of all of this that is difficult (aside from attempting to make
the code work on a zillion different systems in a sane way) is actually
collecting and, as best as is possible, verifying the data.

That is all that really matters.   All the rest is just frills, and as anyone
is free to take the collected data and write it down in whatever format
they like, no-one should really be overly concerned with the format in
which we write it, nor how often that changes.

Getting as much data as possible, as accurately as we can determine
it (down to tiny fractions of a second, when it matters) is all that is really
important.  When the format cannot represent the data, we change the
format, never compromise the data.  The format can also change just
because something new happens to be more convenient.

kre