Re: Proposal: Change what is meant by the "PST" timezone

"PST" specifically means "Pacific Standard Time". If you mean the zone 
that encompasses both Standard and Daylight, that is definitely 
"Pacific Time"; that's how it's listed on US Government sites (as well 
as "Eastern Time", "Central Time", and so on). I was not able to find 
US Government usage of short acronyms for these zones, but the 
abbreviations ET, CT, MT, and PT are widely used in the US broadcasting 
industry.

Unfortunately, since "Pacific" is already used as a prefix for some of 
the long time zone names, it doesn't make a good short name.

I would be in favor of the proposed change, as well as adding "PT" as a 
synonym for "PST8PDT" (and the corresponding changes for ET, CT, MT, 
etc.).

Deborah

On Feb 26, 2004, at 1:50 PM, Alan S Liu wrote:

> I need your opinion!
>
>   http://www.jtcsv.com/cgibin/icu-bugs/formatting?id=3477
>
> This bug describes some discrepancies in the ICU timezone data.
>
> One issue that may be controversial is this one:  What is meant by 
> "PST"?
>
> Since JDK 1.1, Java code has been able to specify "PST" in order to
> retrieve what is really "America/Los_Angeles".  ICU4C and ICU4J have 
> also
> supported this alias.
>
> That is, "PST" (which stands for Pacific *Standard* Time) has been 
> used as
> an alias for a timezone that includes both Pacific Standard Time 
> (GMT-8)
> and Pacific *Daylight* Time (GMT-7).  The proper "short name" for this 
> is
> "PST8PDT", not "PST".  However, in the past (both in ICU4C/J and in the
> JDK) "PST" has been used to mean "PST8PDT".
>
> *** Part of the justification is probably:  When someone says "PST", 
> they
> mean PST8PDT.  Unlike some other zones ("MST" == America/Phoenix) where
> you really have an area that observes xST all year long, that doesn't
> happen in the Pacific zone -- so anyone saying "PST" really means 
> PST8PDT.
> ***
>
> This might seem like a fine distinction, but the bug proposes to change
> this situation.
>
> Before:
>   PST => America/Los_Angeles
>
> After:
>   PST     => GMT-8
>   PST8PDT => America/Los_Angeles
>
> This will, of course, break any code that assumes PST ==
> America/Los_Angeles.
>
> There are other options.  We could keep "PST" as an alias for "PST8PDT"
> since "that's what users really mean."
>
> NOTE: While this email describes "PST", there are other proposed 
> changes.
> "PST" is chosen because it may be more familiar to most readers.  The
> "PST" issue is illustrative of similar issues with other zones.
>
> Please reply to this mailing list with comments.
>
> [Alan S Liu/San Jose/IBM@IBMUS; [email protected];; IBM Globalization;
> 5600 Cottle Road; San Jose, CA 95193;; (408) 256-3155]
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