[tz] Recommendations for stable list of timezone ids

[Tobias Lindaaker]

> On 14 Feb 2018, at 04:43 , Clive D.W. Feather <clive at davros.org> wrote:
> 
> Goudge, Stephen said:
>> Back in 2008 I posted here that I am doing pretty much exactly the same thing as requested here: basically, I have a C enum that lists out all the zones and as new ones are created this gets extended.
> 
> While I appreciate what you're doing and why, I would prefer that the
> database allocated a unique persistent random number (four or five digits,
> or even six with a simple check code) to each zone.

If an official allocation of that type was made, that would certainly fit my use cases.

> We discussed this a year ago, but from memory it got bogged down in
> proposals to make the numbers match alphabetical order of names or
> something like that.

Do you have an archive link to that discussion. I would be interested in what the arguments were for that.
In my opinion it would  make the numbers easier to allocate if we did not have to care about preserving a particular order, so I am curious to learn what the arguments for alphabetical order were.

Assigning numbers for tzids certainly seems to be within the scope of what the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority could be doing... ;-)

Cheers,
Tobias