Stephen Colebourne via tz said:
What I'm trying to do is: - get agreement that tzdb has IDs beyond those needed for the abstract region system - that those IDs are in widespread use - that those IDs should be considered a fully supported aspect of tzdb because of their widespread use - that there is a clear rule expressing which IDs are fully supported and which are deprecated.
I don't see the word "deprecated" anywhere in the theory file. Who is saying that IDs should be deprecated and what do they mean by that term?
Think of it as overlapping concerns. There is a minimal set of IDs that are needed for timezone reasons (abstract regions like Europe/Berlin and Africa/Abidjan). And there is an overlapping set of IDs that have existed for a very long time, are very widely used, but are considered by some to be deprecated. A typical downstream user *cannot tell the difference* between the two types of ID - they both look and act exactly the same.
So long as they don't disappear, why does the downstream user care? So what you're saying is that we need to be clear when a name can disappear. Completely. From the database that the downstream user sees. -- Clive D.W. Feather | If you lie to the compiler, Email: clive@davros.org | it will get its revenge. Web: http://www.davros.org | - Henry Spencer Mobile: +44 7973 377646