4 ms·

Author here, self-posted. AMA.

hl4hknz 5y ago
Great write up! Do you know if lex62 has any performance disadvantage versus bases that are in 2^n? (32, 64 etc?) I always assumed the conversation to 2^n bases could be done more efficiently.
- sudhirj 5y ago
  Hmm. I haven’t actually gone low level enough to answer that, but I suppose it’s possible - doesn’t seem likely to be significant in a web application server scenario, though. The random jitter on the lan line to the DB is probably going to be more significant.
wch 5y ago
I just want to say that I really enjoyed reading this article. It's among the clearest, most accessible writing about a technical subject that I've encountered in a while.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dlbucci 5y ago
Great article! I hadn't heard of this, but it sounds like something I might suddenly be using in the near future! Also, I loved this line: "Given the way we're going, humanity in its present form isn't likely to exist them, so when this becomes an issue it'll be somebody else's problem. More likely something else's problem."
piaste 5y ago
I think Base85 [0] warrants a mention for those needing to minimize the string representation length of their UUIDs. A year ago or so we had to store a reference to one of our entities into a legacy third-party system, which used char(20) as the column size and of course couldn't be changed. Since Base85 encodes a UUID as exactly 20 ASCII characters, it saved me from having to add an extra indirection. (Also, and to be honest mainly, from giving ammo to our CEO who had never liked UUIDs) Of the various 85-character encodings, I thought Z85 [1] was the best one. It's not URL-safe, but it's safe for copy-pasting into queries, source code, XML, JSON, CSV, etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii85 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii85 [1] https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec/32/ https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec/32/
- sudhirj 5y ago
  Nice, thanks, haven’t see. This before. Can’t say I like the symbols in there, but will add it as a reference. Should probably add base58 as well, Bitcoin uses it.
- Zamicol 5y ago
  Thank you! I was familiar with Ascii85 but not Z85. I just added it to the "Other projects" section of my base converter. https://convert.zamicol.com/ https://convert.zamicol.com/

Great write up! Do you know if lex62 has any performance disadvantage versus bases that are in 2^n? (32, 64 etc?) I always assumed the conversation to 2^n bases could be done more efficiently.

sudhirj 5y ago
Hmm. I haven’t actually gone low level enough to answer that, but I suppose it’s possible - doesn’t seem likely to be significant in a web application server scenario, though. The random jitter on the lan line to the DB is probably going to be more significant.

wch 5y ago

I just want to say that I really enjoyed reading this article. It's among the clearest, most accessible writing about a technical subject that I've encountered in a while.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dlbucci 5y ago

Great article! I hadn't heard of this, but it sounds like something I might suddenly be using in the near future! Also, I loved this line: "Given the way we're going, humanity in its present form isn't likely to exist them, so when this becomes an issue it'll be somebody else's problem. More likely something else's problem."

piaste 5y ago

I think Base85 [0] warrants a mention for those needing to minimize the string representation length of their UUIDs. A year ago or so we had to store a reference to one of our entities into a legacy third-party system, which used char(20) as the column size and of course couldn't be changed. Since Base85 encodes a UUID as exactly 20 ASCII characters, it saved me from having to add an extra indirection. (Also, and to be honest mainly, from giving ammo to our CEO who had never liked UUIDs) Of the various 85-character encodings, I thought Z85 [1] was the best one. It's not URL-safe, but it's safe for copy-pasting into queries, source code, XML, JSON, CSV, etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii85 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii85 [1] https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec/32/ https://rfc.zeromq.org/spec/32/

sudhirj 5y ago
Nice, thanks, haven’t see. This before. Can’t say I like the symbols in there, but will add it as a reference. Should probably add base58 as well, Bitcoin uses it.
Zamicol 5y ago
Thank you! I was familiar with Ascii85 but not Z85. I just added it to the "Other projects" section of my base converter. https://convert.zamicol.com/ https://convert.zamicol.com/