[Q]:Generate Unique ID's

[Steven Taschuk]

Quoth achrist at easystreet.com:
  [...]
> Is there anything in the standard Python libs to generate an ID
> like those that Windows uses, which are guaranteed to be unique
> over all instances of everything, forever, no exceptions?

I am puzzled about this guarantee of eternal and universal
uniqueness to which you refer.  I had the impression that Windows'
GUIDs are always so many bits (128?), which obviously puts a
(large) upper limit on the number of unique identifiers which can
be constructed.  (For example, uniquely identifying each subset of
the human population would call for identifiers more than six
billion bits long.)

When you say "no exceptions", do you mean "some very small number
of exceptions, close enough to zero for all practical purposes"?
Or am I misunderstanding the matter in some other way?

-- 
Steven Taschuk                            staschuk at telusplanet.net
Every public frenzy produces legislation purporting to address it.
                                                  (Kinsley's Law)