[tz] tzdb timezone names/identifiers and links (was: Add new timezone for Hanoi Capital, Vietnam)

[John Hawkinson]

Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote on Wed, 20 Feb 2019
at 04:09:42 PM -0800 in <2ffc250d-5eaa-5260-cef1-ab828460bf9e at cs.ucla.edu>:

> So it seems this approach is tenable enough, at least for the
> technical interfaces that timezone names are designed for. Although
> these names may be inappropriate for nontechnical users, they're
> explicitly not designed for that, and attempting to support them in
> applications they're not designed for will likely cause everybody
> more trouble than it's worth.

I think it's that last point that isn't well-supported in this argument, and that we go around and around on. But we shouldn't pretend that there's agreement on that point, or that the answer is obvious, or that we have a good way to weigh the costs if we do not.

It's clear where Paul's preference is, but it's not really clear if there is some absolute rubric of pain, trouble, and frustration that we should be evaluating this on.

I tend to think a clear allowance of one zone per country code would reduce the amount of pain and discussion on this mailing list, as well as in the real world outside the tz project, and we really ought to consider it.

Sometimes it feels like we are fighting over a line in the sand drawn arbitrarily some time ago without having thought it through, and that is particularly hard to defend.

--jhawk at mit.edu
  John Hawkinson