[tz] Some thoughts about the way forward

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Paul Eggert via tz said:
> > Might I suggest we consider creating a simply-sortable order that naturally
> > allows for more than 26 releases?
> 
> The current spec does do that, since it allows 2021za as the natural 
> successor of 2021z, and this kind of sequence allows as many versions 
> per year as you like, and is sortable using lexicographic order.
> 
> A downside of the current approach is that the size of the version 
> number grows linearly (not logarithmically) with the number of versions 
> per year. I hope we don't run into a practical problem with that 
> limitation....

I can't see us ever wanting to do more than one release a day on average
(i.e. I can see the need to update a release on the same day, but that
would be rare), so we want to allow for up to 366 releases per year.

So why not change the sequence to go a to y, then zaa to zzz? That way you
never have one ID being the prefix of another.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather          | If you lie to the compiler,
Email: clive at davros.org     | it will get its revenge.
Web: http://www.davros.org  |   - Henry Spencer
Mobile: +44 7973 377646