I understand the differences between zone.tab and zone1970.tab, but why does zone.tab have to be deprecated? Can't we just maintain both files indefinitely? Then developers can choose whichever file makes sense for their scenario. Is there a specific reason for the deprecation? If it is to be dropped at some point - how far out is that, and does it get maintained until then?
On 10/16/2014 12:20 PM, Matt Johnson wrote:
Can't we just maintain both files indefinitely?
Yes and no. We can make changes to both when that's easy (e.g., the 2014f changes for Russia, or the proposed changes for Bougainville) but some newer changes are not easily expressed in the old model and those changes are omitted from zone.tab (e.g., the 2014f changes for Crozet and the Scattered Islands, or theproposedchanges for Vietnam before 1976). I don't anticipate zone.tab going away any time soon, but it has already started to drift away from being the "full" or "canonical" list, and I don't recommend it for new applications.
participants (2)
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Matt Johnson -
Paul Eggert