[tz] tzdb timezone names/identifiers and links

[Michael Douglass]

On 2/26/19 17:17, Steve Allen wrote:
> On Tue 2019-02-26T20:00:54+0000 Paul.Koning at dell.com 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?)


>
> --
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