On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:17 AM, Mark Davis ☕ <mark@macchiato.com> wrote:
Variable length and inconsistent country code usage:
This is a misunderstanding. Of the UN LOCODE system, on the side of CLDR designers.
CLDR is specified to use 5 letter UN LOCODEs where they exist. Where they do not exist, it is specified to use a non-5-letter code, precisely so that they do not overlap with future UN LOCODEs. That could have been easily achieved with 5-letter codes, as has been shown at: http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2012-May/017974.html and http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2012-May/017980.html
If overlap prevention the goal, then there was misunderstanding of the UN LOCODE system on the side of CLDR.
When the codes are not 5 letters, the first two letters have no meaning. Except where they have. And for some from the US, even the first 4 have a meaning: debsngn: de = Germany gldkshvn: gl = Greenland mxstis: mx = Mexico rukhndg: ru = Russia ruunera: ru = Russia usinvev: us = US (usin = Indiana) usnavajo: us = US usndcnt: us = US (usnd = North Dakota) usndnsl: us = US (usnd = North Dakota)
The codes are stablized, meaning that they will not change no matter what changes happen in the base codes. So if Hawaii leaves the US and joins Canada as a new province, "ushnl" would not change in CLDR even if the UN LOCODE changes to "cahnl" or something else. And combining this with "When the codes are not 5 letters, the first two letters have no meaning.", assuming that, if they have 5 letters they /may/ have a meaning, leads to the fact that the meaning in CLDR would be different from the meaning in the UN LOCODE system.
A statement on why a country relation was not seen suitable for time zone identifiers can be found at: ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/code/Theory "Be robust in the presence of political changes." -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com