At 12:52 PM +0200 2004-10-24, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
Most hashing algorithms start having problems when they get close to 50% full. There's no difference here.
No, except that this isn't a hash function.
True, but that doesn't change the nature of the problem.
Besides, 2 character codes can easily be extended by allowing 0-9 as the second character, allowing for 936 combinations, which should be enough for a long time to come. And it's ISO's problem, not ours, anyway.
It's a problem that the ISO has created, but one we will have to live with. At the very least, we need to keep in mind upcoming future problems. The reason Y2k wasn't much of a problem was that people saw the issue looming, and many people around the world worked their butts off over a multi-year period of time to help ensure that everything would go smoothly. And overall, it did go reasonably smoothly. -- Brad Knowles, <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org> "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755 SAGE member since 1995. See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.