ULID: Universally Unique Lexicographically Sortable Identifier
See also Firebase push IDs:<p><a href="https://firebase.googleblog.com/2015/02/the-2120-ways-to-ensure-unique_68.html" rel="nofollow">https://firebase.googleblog.com/2015/02/the-2120-ways-to-ens...</a><p>Lexicographically sortable identifiers are critical for any distributed data store if you want anything close to consistency.  I've run into the issue of not having them and having to settle for some kind of <autoincrement_id><UUID> key and it's a huge PITA.  How this wasn't considered database 101 decades ago just blows my mind.<p>I'd like to see a spec included in this for synchronizing clocks or using RAFT/Paxos for generating ULIDs with strong guarantees on sort order.<p>Also a minor gripe - I wish that the ULID spec checked for microsecond collisions instead of millisecond, because that would be more useful for realtime networked gaming and simulations.