Simon Riggs <simon@2ndQuadrant.com> writes:
> Sorry for any confusion. I've not suggested removing timezone
> abbreviations, nor do I wish to do so.
> I did suggest that we do not rely upon TZ abbreviations in any code
> shipped by PostgreSQL project, but I suspect that is a non-problem
> anyway.
No, we don't rely on them AFAIK; certainly we don't use them in data
output. But people expect to be able to use them in data input.
The idea of tracking date ranges in which a TZ abbreviation is valid
is an interesting one, but it's vastly more effort than I for one
am willing to put into the problem --- not just in coding the
infrastructure, but gathering and maintaining the source data.
[ reflects for a bit... ] I guess in principle we could pull change
information out of the IANA database rather than having to maintain it
ourselves. But still what you're suggesting is an awful lot of work.
The other thing that the abbreviation list files are doing for us is
providing a user-configurable way to resolve conflicting abbreviations,
for instance IST (the Indians and the Israelis both use this, but not to
mean the same thing). This requirement isn't ever going to go away.
The Default list represents some considered judgements as to what the
most widely useful set of abbreviations is. We don't get to abdicate
the position of having to make those judgements; nobody would thank us
for breaking their database configurations because we can't decide.
I still think that we need some input from actual Russians as to what
is the currently most useful set of abbreviations for Russian time
zones. Armchair speculation from the other side of the globe isn't
going to be helpful to them.
regards, tom lane
