On Oct 20, 2014, at 1:17 PM, Tim Parenti <tim@timtimeonline.com> wrote:
Attached is a proposed patch.
My patch assumes that this year's November start date is a one-time departure from the recent norm of Oct Sun>=21, and that DST will continue in 2015/2016 and beyond according to the pattern used between 2010 and 2014. (For now, it seems to me that we're more likely to be closer to correct by assuming some DST in the future than by assuming none.)
But given the apparent policy statement that the default is “no DST”, I think it would be better for our rules to say so. In other words, make the current rule a once-only rule, and from then forward no DST. Comments explaining why would be useful, given that a “no DST” default isn’t the obvious answer if you look at past practice. Still, it’s one thing to infer a future rule from past behavior in the absence of any other data; it’s rather a different matter to continue doing so after we’ve been told that this isn’t the right way to look at things. paul