[tz] tzdb timezone names/identifiers and links

[Brian Inglis]

On 2019-02-27 12:29, Michael Douglass wrote:
> On 2/26/19 17:17, Steve Allen wrote:
>> On Tue 2019-02-26T20:00:54+0000 Paul. oning hath writ:
>>> Once in a while it is suggested that all tzdb zones should be
>>> identified by random unique integers, or something like that.  I'm
>>> more and more inclined to think that's a good idea, because it would
>>> once and for all shut down this confusion.
>> This seems to be a proposal to
>> 1) Move the arguments to be Somebody Else's Problem, somewhere else.
> Yes - but also to provide a mechanism that makes it less of a problem
>> 2) Break a lot of existing interfaces to achieve that goal.
>> I cannot begin to calculate the cost of 2) but given the number of
>> downstream interfaces which use tzdb it seems likely larger than the
>> cost of tolerating the discussions on this list.
> There's an easy backwards compatibility mode:
> 1. have a uid for every zone
> 2. Create a set of data mapping that uid on to names that look like the current
> names
> 3. Provide a backwards compatability mode to take that file (or another named
> file) and put the names back
> For unchanged downstream software it looks exactly the same. However now we have
> disassociated the zones from the name. Downstream users are free to create their
> own files if they wish and we can also set about finding a owner for that name
> file (cldr perhaps?)
Changing tz ids from location names to numbers just means you need comments
describing the locations in the time zone to which it applies, and the arguments
become about the commentary instead of the ids, so you can never totally avoid
the issues.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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