3 ms·

> Does it make the URL in the URL bar longer? Yeah, but does that matter? Yes. That's one of the author's arguments. ) A simple ID like 3c6n63N is more than e

> Does it make the URL in the URL bar longer? Yeah, but does that matter? Yes. That's one of the author's arguments. ) A simple ID like 3c6n63N is more than enough to represent any product while keeping it readable and making communication easier. A UUID alternative like a73ba12d-1d8b-2516-3aee-4b15e563a835 is just wasteful from an user’s perspective.

appletrotter 3y ago
Maybe it’s one if the author’s arguments, but that doesn’t mean the author is right.
- richbell 3y ago
  Sure — it's just a weird question to pose when the author specifically provides their opinion on it. It'd be different to say "I don't think it matters".
  - Petersipoi 3y ago
    You're just nitpicking. "Does it matter" is a very reasonable response to someone expressing their opinion.
    - richbell 3y ago
      It's not nitpicking. If I say "x matters and here's why" and you respond "yeah but does x matter?", you're either not paying attention or being rude and dismissive.
NBJack 3y ago
There is the rub. Readable for what purpose? Aesthetics? And why? It is meaningless in their example. And what do they mean with communication? Reading it aloud? If the URL is too long to stick in a tweet or message, there are plenty of URL shorteners out there.
- skybrian 3y ago
  Copying very long URL’s into a Markdown document or a social media post is pretty annoying. URL shorteners are opaque and add a point of failure. On link-sharing sites like this one, we care about the URL’s we share and will often strip off the tracking stuff.
  - sieabahlpark 3y ago
    [dead]
croes 3y ago
Must be oral communication, otherwise copy and paste the link. And I bet that for most users 3c6n63N is as confusing as a73ba12d-1d8b-2516-3aee-4b15e563a835
dragonwriter 3y ago
The point of a UUID is to have a unique machine ID that can be generated in parallel by separate, non-synchronized processes. You don't need to make it a user exposed identifier, and you can have a centralized (but out-of-the-critical-path) process assigning friendly IDs if you can afford visibility delays (for either the whole item or at least the friendly ID, which if it is the only user-facing locator may mean that the individual item can’t be directly accessed even if it is visible in aggregates, until that is assigned; if you allow access by both the UUID and the friendly ID, with the latter presented as preferred once available, this is resolved but this may appear messier.)
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  Exactly. Also, not everything is going to be an URL, or human-visible at all. Others have noted the usefulness of generating ids for user-created data without involving the server, while being able to post that data at a later time without worrying too much about collisions. Suspenders-and-belt practice would of course dictate that the server do some type of collision detection and mitigation before storing the received data. If UUID exists in database and user ID is different, tell client "Yo, we've got a collision here. Your new ID for this data is blah". On the client end, when creating the data, Generate new UUID. If I've ever used that UUID before, generate a new one. When the client saves the data to the server If the server rejects my UUID, switch to the new one provided by the server In practice the collision mitigation code is likely never to be called, even in a very large system. The people who designed UUID went to great lengths to ensure that. Personally, I'd look on home-brewed solutions for generating unique "friendly ids" with the same deep suspicion I look at home-brewed crypto, particularly if this were done client-side for multiple clients without involving a server round-trip. Getting it right is a Hard Problem. The perceived complexity of UUIDs is there precisely because it is a Hard Problem.
insanitybit 3y ago
I guess in the rare instance where you're literally reading a URL out loud it would help. Most of the time you're sending a URL, at which point length is mostly irrelevant as you're "copy/paste" on both sides.

appletrotter 3y ago

Maybe it’s one if the author’s arguments, but that doesn’t mean the author is right.

richbell 3y ago
Sure — it's just a weird question to pose when the author specifically provides their opinion on it. It'd be different to say "I don't think it matters".
- Petersipoi 3y ago
  You're just nitpicking. "Does it matter" is a very reasonable response to someone expressing their opinion.
  - richbell 3y ago
    It's not nitpicking. If I say "x matters and here's why" and you respond "yeah but does x matter?", you're either not paying attention or being rude and dismissive.

NBJack 3y ago

There is the rub. Readable for what purpose? Aesthetics? And why? It is meaningless in their example. And what do they mean with communication? Reading it aloud? If the URL is too long to stick in a tweet or message, there are plenty of URL shorteners out there.

skybrian 3y ago
Copying very long URL’s into a Markdown document or a social media post is pretty annoying. URL shorteners are opaque and add a point of failure. On link-sharing sites like this one, we care about the URL’s we share and will often strip off the tracking stuff.
- sieabahlpark 3y ago
  [dead]

croes 3y ago

Must be oral communication, otherwise copy and paste the link. And I bet that for most users 3c6n63N is as confusing as a73ba12d-1d8b-2516-3aee-4b15e563a835

dragonwriter 3y ago

The point of a UUID is to have a unique machine ID that can be generated in parallel by separate, non-synchronized processes. You don't need to make it a user exposed identifier, and you can have a centralized (but out-of-the-critical-path) process assigning friendly IDs if you can afford visibility delays (for either the whole item or at least the friendly ID, which if it is the only user-facing locator may mean that the individual item can’t be directly accessed even if it is visible in aggregates, until that is assigned; if you allow access by both the UUID and the friendly ID, with the latter presented as preferred once available, this is resolved but this may appear messier.)

Turing_Machine 3y ago
Exactly. Also, not everything is going to be an URL, or human-visible at all. Others have noted the usefulness of generating ids for user-created data without involving the server, while being able to post that data at a later time without worrying too much about collisions. Suspenders-and-belt practice would of course dictate that the server do some type of collision detection and mitigation before storing the received data. If UUID exists in database and user ID is different, tell client "Yo, we've got a collision here. Your new ID for this data is blah". On the client end, when creating the data, Generate new UUID. If I've ever used that UUID before, generate a new one. When the client saves the data to the server If the server rejects my UUID, switch to the new one provided by the server In practice the collision mitigation code is likely never to be called, even in a very large system. The people who designed UUID went to great lengths to ensure that. Personally, I'd look on home-brewed solutions for generating unique "friendly ids" with the same deep suspicion I look at home-brewed crypto, particularly if this were done client-side for multiple clients without involving a server round-trip. Getting it right is a Hard Problem. The perceived complexity of UUIDs is there precisely because it is a Hard Problem.

insanitybit 3y ago

I guess in the rare instance where you're literally reading a URL out loud it would help. Most of the time you're sending a URL, at which point length is mostly irrelevant as you're "copy/paste" on both sides.