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zerodensity | 1 year ago

Immagine a world where every framework / API / database had its own incompatible UUID format. Without a standard specification that's where we would end up. Do you want to live in such a world?

discuss

order

bruce511|1 year ago

If you treat the uuid as an opaque binary random value (which is how programs -should- treat it) then variances between versions, or custom versions, have no effect.

As long as they gave sufficient randomness etc, from a program perspective they are unique id's.

There are already multiple versions in active use (4, 7 and arguably 8) so you really shouldn't be using the uuid as anything but a long-random-value.

Yes, the database engine may appreciate one version over another for performance reasons, but that's irrelevant to most developers and programs.

jagrsw|1 year ago

Forget universally compatible UID formats. Frameworks, APIs, and databases only need consistency within their own ecosystem.

Want visually recognizable unique identifiers?

  JAGRSW-UID-<192bit-input-from-urandom-encoded-in-base64>
Need to shave off some bytes?

  JUID-<192bit-input-from-urandom-encoded-in-base64>
Same byte size as UUIDs, arguably more "secure." Can I become an ACM Fellow for solving this problem now?

Seriously, these UUID debates are about as sensible as arguing over XML.