australasia

[Bradley White]

ado,

One bogus comment, one real comment, and then some observations ...

It was difficult to find the actual rules!  I know this is probably
one of your prime motivations in trying to clean it up, but running
it through (the equivalent of) "sed /^#/d | cat -s" made things much
easier for a human to parse.  (So much for the bogus comment.)

The real comment is that I believe ...

  Rule	AS	1991	max	-	Mar	Sun>=1	3:00	0	-

... to be wrong.  Recent correspondence with a friend in Adelaide
contained the following exchange:

    Due to the Adelaide Festival, South Australia delays setting
    back our clocks for a few weeks.  So, we're now 0.5 hours
    *later* than Sydney ... can you believe it?

So, I believe the ...

  Rule	AS	1986	1990	-	Mar	Sun<=21	3:00	0	-

... rule should actually go to the "max" (or, at least extending to
include 1992, although I'm not as certain about 1991).

And now some observations which are eminently ignorable.

* Perhaps it might be clearer to add "Rule" sets for Australia/West
  and Australia/Queensland just like the other states with at least
  some daylight time.

* Some "only" rules use explicit dates, while others use generic
  specifications.  For example,

   Rule	AT	1972	only	-	Feb	lastSun	3:00	0	-
	-v-
   Rule	NSW	1982	only	-	Apr	4	3:00	0	-

  Perhaps it might be better to do one or the other consistently.
  (The shift invariably occurs on a Sunday morning.)

* The current Australia zone names are:

        LHI                 Queensland          Victoria
        North               South               West
        NSW                 Tasmania            Yancowinna

  "LHI" (Lord Howe Island) and "Yancowinna" are special cases, but the
  others are somewhat inconsistent and may be better rendered as:

        New-South-Wales             Tasmania
        Northern-Territory          Victoria
        Queensland                  Western-Australia
        South-Australia

  However, you probably want to stay under 14 characters, in which case
  I would propose:

        NSW          QLD          TAS          WA
        NT           SA           VIC

  Also, linking "NSW" to "ACT" (Australian-Capital-Territory) might be
  useful.

* Even the current rule-set names are a little inconsistent.  We have
  "AS", "AT", and "AV", but then "NSW".  If you subscribe to the naming
  suggestion above, it might be nice to call the ``Australia/FOO'' rule
  set simply ``FOO''.

Anyway, just some suggestions.  Others may have better ones.

Brad