True future-proofing would require representing address length as an arbitrary-precision nonzero unsigned integer.
Since allowing a zero-length network address format would serve no purpose other than to pointlessly complicate standards definitions, you could trivially and without loss of generality interpret zero to denote some extended-length address length representation to be defined in a future version of the standard.
alt Hacker News
At best future-resistant.
True future-proofing would require representing address length as an arbitrary-precision nonzero unsigned integer.
Since allowing a zero-length network address format would serve no purpose other than to pointlessly complicate standards definitions, you could trivially and without loss of generality interpret zero to denote some extended-length address length representation to be defined in a future version of the standard.