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Estimating objects from serial numbers: How a statistical formula won the war
- iamwil 19y agoI got this link from Joshua ala delicious's blog. He was saying how auto increment on primary ids isn't a good idea--especially when it's exposed as a part of the URL. Too bad this is the default in Rails.
- falsestprophet 19y agoIs it really that tragic if people know how many users you have? Maybe honesty isn't an awful idea.
- iamwil 19y agoWell, it's not exactly that. If primary ids are in order, someone, somewhere, is eventually going to write a script that sequentially goes through and pulls all that data off. While that in itself might not be bad, pinging your servers without throttling it might be.
- jgrahamc 19y agoI know of at least one company that uses this as a way to determine the growth of their competitors. They simple poll weekly and understand growth and the trend over time. John.
- tocomment 19y agoIt doesn't say why this formula works. Does anyone know? Does it depend on other assumptions about tank production not mentioned in the article, or can you use this exact formula for any problem of this type?
- jsmcgd 19y agoAmazing. I love shit like this.