On 02/20/2016 08:43 PM, Robert Elz wrote:
Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2016 17:04:24 -0500 From: J William Piggott <elseifthen@gmx.com> Message-ID: <56C8E2E8.5080700@gmx.com>
| +# There is no location named Holiday Islands in Queensland Australia, holiday | +# islands is a colloquial term used globally.
That's true, but it is a widely used nomenclature, and probably better known that Whitsunday Islands.
Its wide use is what makes it a poor identifier to use in the zone tables. It is used in referring to all of the Great Barrier Reef holiday destinations, e.g., Bribie Island, Fraser Island, Great Keppel Island, Lizard Island, Magnetic Island. This zone doesn't apply to them. Most of the commercial websites I've found that cater to this specific group of holiday islands refer to them by their proper name, ether 'Whitsunday Islands' or simply the 'Whitsundays'. For example: http://holiday-whitsundays.com/ http://www.yachtcharters.com.au/whitsunday-islands-visit/ Before making further arguments, I'd like to make clear that this patch is about using an unambiguous name in the zone table comments. The zone table comments are intended for use in applications like tzselect. These applications should not assume the user has any prior knowledge of the areas. To help users choose a file from the Time Zone Database it is better to identify areas with their proper names, than some vague colloquial term. The use of 'Holiday Islands' in the zone tables seems to originate from the comments in zone source file. So I think there should be some mention of the proper name there. I do not have a strong opinion as to the exact wording.
| Hayman and Lindeman are at the | +# North and South extremes of the Whitsunday Islands archipelago, and | +# Hamalton is in between;
That would be Hamilton
True, my mistake.
, and while Lindeman is near the southern extreme, Thomas Island is probably the actual limit.
I did not mean to imply that it was _the_ southern most point. However, replacing 'at' with 'near' would be better.
| it is reasonable to believe that this time zone | +# applies to all of the Whitsundays.
That would require confirmation from someone in that part of the world I expect - some of the islands are probably uninhabited, and so have no real timezone. Inhabited ones that are not tourist destinations (if such a thing really exists) could just use reqular Qld time (I have no idea.)
This was only a two year period, they're on 'reqular Qld time' now. It probably is not relevant which islands in the group the database considers part this zone. Will someone really try to use this database to ascertain a time in 1993 on an uninhabited Whitsunday island? Using the proper name to identify the area is relevant.
kre
ps: is all of this structure really needed for what are just comments intended for (local knowledgeable) humans?
I do not think it should be assumed everyone working on this file will have local knowledge, especially colloquial terms. I find the source file comments useful.