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You Don't Need UUID

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Re: You Don't Need UUID

#51

Post by crooked-v »

Alupis wrote: post #18
iaaan wrote: post #3

The crux of this argument seems to be that UUIDs are too long? Which I disagree with. I can't memorize them, no, and it would be cumbersome to try to say one aloud, but these aren't situations I've ever found myself in. Does it make the URL in the URL bar longer? Yeah, but does that matter?

> Does it make the URL in the URL bar longer? Yeah, but does that matter? No, it doesn't. If you're using a central system to generate id's (UUID's or other), then you are indeed missing a lot of the benefits of UUID's and might as well use some other ID scheme. The benefits of UUID are many systems can generate them, and your database can eventually accept them, all with a very high guarantee of uniqueness/no-collis…

For a simple practical example, it's awfully useful for a lot of systems to be able to generate UUIDs in an app while offline (think document creation, etc) and reconcile things later by shooting the blob of content off to the server, while knowing that you only need to handle the dance of getting IDs and updating stuff locally again in your error handling case.

Re: You Don't Need UUID

#52

Post by masklinn »

czechdeveloper wrote: post #13
emodendroket wrote: post #4

> 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 a user’s perspective. I would challenge the premise we appear to be starting from, that the average end user cares to be dealing with any random string of numbers and digits. GUIDs work well, they’re implem…

Plus I could easily represent UUID in base64, such as JlEt5BSYe0enwB7nxl5V6g, which makes it shorter if I need that.

Maybe use a smaller alphabet though, base64’s can be quite hard to read / spell out / reproduce as it includes confusing pairs.

While somewhat less dense, base58 or rfc 4648 base32 mitigate these issues.

Re: You Don't Need UUID

#53

Post by 5e92cb50239222b »

bandergirl wrote: post #49
eternityforest wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It somewhat matters aesthetically, but mostly people are going to ignore long random strings. UUIDs are at least visually kind of white noise, companies have no problem+with+links?that=look&like=this, so why do they care about UUIDs?

apple.com/iphone You can't beat that. Or would you rather receive texts that include the following? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09V3HZ8B5/?pd_rd_w=DAycy&content-id=amzn1.sym.04e31e32-5e01-4048-8b59-a557891d595f:amzn1.sym.04e31e32-5e01-4048-8b59-a557891d595f&pf_rd_p=04e31e32-5e01-4048-8b59-a557891d595f&pf_rd_r=M1KXM468KNZJV189JBE7&pd_rd_wg=3O1uC&pd_rd_r=e51c1edc-213f-4c6d-b081-e23afa6bf4ab&ref_=vn_s_iwp&qid=1694453553…

You only really need this part:

https://amazon.com/dp/B09V3HZ8B5

Re: You Don't Need UUID

#54

Post by 38 »

czechdeveloper wrote: post #13
emodendroket wrote: post #4

> 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 a user’s perspective. I would challenge the premise we appear to be starting from, that the average end user cares to be dealing with any random string of numbers and digits. GUIDs work well, they’re implem…

Plus I could easily represent UUID in base64, such as JlEt5BSYe0enwB7nxl5V6g, which makes it shorter if I need that.

or ascii85:

    -;cAU'UX5;VnaA:`a2[1

Re: You Don't Need UUID

#55

Post by skybrian »

NBJack wrote: post #27
richbell wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

Re: You Don't Need UUID

#56

Post by stayfrosty420 »

uuids are ubiquitous and easy and implemented in many languages in the standard library - therefore a dev can get near-guaranteed uniqueness without thinking too hard about it.

Until another standard similar to what the article is suggesting becomes widely implemented in standard libraries then uuid isn't going anywhere, although in principle I agree with many of the arguments presented.

Re: You Don't Need UUID

#57

Post by pphysch »

You Don't Need UUID, But You Probably Want It:

- Don't invent your own ID datatype (especially 11 byte one), this is almost guaranteed to cause dangerous bugs, because each integration will have to carefully implement/hack it.

- Use UUID (preferably the new v7). 128-bit UUID is implemented, for you, pretty much everywhere.

- Serial integers still work too, but you should choose them consciously to fit the data model.

- Implement "natural keys" if you want pretty/memorable/Cool URLs. Never use non-standard PKs to store custom semantic data, because inevitably you will get garbage PKs that need to be fixed, and migrating a PK value is extremely risky.

Re: You Don't Need UUID

#58

Post by afgrant »

It’s a sales pitch for base58 that I’m not buying at all. According to the code segment, they include numeral “1” but exclude lowercase “l”?

0-9 and a-f are unambiguous and widely understood. They’re more “human readable”.

Re: You Don't Need UUID

#59

Post by [deleted] »

bandergirl wrote: post #49
eternityforest wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It somewhat matters aesthetically, but mostly people are going to ignore long random strings. UUIDs are at least visually kind of white noise, companies have no problem+with+links?that=look&like=this, so why do they care about UUIDs?

apple.com/iphone You can't beat that. Or would you rather receive texts that include the following? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09V3HZ8B5/?pd_rd_w=DAycy&content-id=amzn1.sym.04e31e32-5e01-4048-8b59-a557891d595f:amzn1.sym.04e31e32-5e01-4048-8b59-a557891d595f&pf_rd_p=04e31e32-5e01-4048-8b59-a557891d595f&pf_rd_r=M1KXM468KNZJV189JBE7&pd_rd_wg=3O1uC&pd_rd_r=e51c1edc-213f-4c6d-b081-e23afa6bf4ab&ref_=vn_s_iwp&qid=1694453553…

[deleted]

Re: You Don't Need UUID

#60

Post by saulpw »

I completely agree. UUIDs are almost always evidence of overengineering, especially when user-facing. 64-bits is "enough" of an address space for almost any purpose, even global. And while it seems like speaking an ID over the phone or having to scan it manually is something you'd never have to do, in practice it happens all the time. Cut-and-paste is not always an option on all platforms.
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