FW: Australian timezone abbreviation EST

[Joachim Wieland]

On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 7:29 PM, Robert Elz <kre at munnari.oz.au> wrote:
>
>  | It looks like there is only one valid timezone abbreviation, which is
>  | EST! EST seems to change its offset whenever Australia/Melbourne
>  | changes from dst or back?
>
> That's right, and it isn't "dst", it is "summer time" - the Summer Time
> Act (1974?) defines the time zones as Eastern Standard Time, and
> Eastern Summer Time - both "EST" - which I cannot believe is by accident.
>
> [...]
>
> If you don't like it, ask the Victorian Parliament if they might please
> change it for you... (but expect opposition to the idea.)

It's less about wanting to change that, more about trying to
understand what the advantage of this is... It requires a lot more
knowledge about timezones than with two timezone abbreviations. To
correctly interpret the time, you always need the full timestamp (and
location?) and you would need to know if at that moment in this area
it was Summer or Standard time.

So what is the reason for doing it that way? Are there other timezones
that also share one timezone abbrevation for their DST and non-DST
time?

What is the standard way of interpreting a time without a given month
or year? Would one just assume the non-DST offset?


Thanks,
Joachim