[cimnine]

Yes, and I like to combine two established concepts instead of rolling my own: URI and UUIDv7. So my IDs become `uri:customer_shortname:product_or_project_name:entity_type:uuid`. An example ID could be `uri:cust:super_duper_erp:invoice:018fe87b-b1fc-7b6f-a09c-74b9ef7f4196`. It's even possible to cascade such IDs, for example: `uri:cust:super_duper_erp:invoice:018fe87b-b1fc-7b6f-a09c-74b9ef7f4196:line_item:018fe882-43b2-77bb-8050-a1139303bb65`.

It's immediately clear, when I see an ID in a log somewhere or when a customer sends me an ID to debug something, to which customer, system and entity such an ID belongs.

UUIDv7 is monotonic, so it's nice for the database. Those IDs are not as 'human-readable' for the average Joe, but for me as an engineer it's a bliss.

Often I also encode ID's I retrieve from external systems this way: `uri:3rd_party_vendor:system_name:entity_type:external_id` (e.g. `uri:ycombinator:hackernews:item:40580549:comment:40582365` might refer to this comment).

[michaelt]

> It's even possible to cascade such IDs, for example: `uri:cust:super_duper_erp:invoice:018fe87b-b1fc-7b6f-a09c-74b9ef7f4196:line_item:018fe882-43b2-77bb-8050-a1139303bb65`.

Let me guess - you're a Java developer, right?

[cimnine]

Nope.