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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

The django-extensions project provides several simple ways to avoid this - just make URL's reference UUIDs or slugs. I imagine RoR has something similar.

http://github.com/django-extensions/django-extensions/blob/m...

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For RoR, you can override to_param on the model in question, something like:

  class User < ActiveRecord::Base
    def to_param
      self.login
    end
    ...
  end

Assuming self.login is reliably unique. Although I've found this can still have some follow on effects that could need to be handled in a situation similar to the above. There are also some heavier weight, more feature filled options of course.

Some of the heavyweight ones are nice as far as human readability goes. Consider the AutoSlugField (in Django). Say you have an object, Item(name='Phillip Lim Pleated printed silk-chiffon dress', description='...).

Which link is less scary?

http://secret-project/item/phillip-lim-pleated-printed-silk-...

http://secret-project/item/47a61d7c-dde1-11df-ba19-0026c72a6...

Funny! I've come to associate slug-type URLs (like the former, that have no numbers or anything in the URL) with content-free websites that have been SEO'd. The latter is also scary though, because it's too MANY random-ass numbers. I have sort've come to expect a combination of a numeric identifier and readable words for reputable sites.

The second link although ugly is less "guessable" if you want to skimp on the authorization check. That aside, sometimes an entity might not have a natural key that can be slugified (e.g. an invoice), in which case UUID is better. Also, using a generating/looking-up a UUID might be faster?

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