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Comment by phineyes | Hacker News Reader

I created a similar project recently! Main difference is that I use base64 to encode unique Snowflake IDs, which are timestamped: https://github.com/hopinc/pika :)

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In your example, the token contains the timestamp.

With prefixed-api-key, the hash of each token is stored in the database, so the timestamp can easily be added there.

Most of the time I don't see the utility in the client having the timestamp, outside of a scenario where you have a third party validate on their own (e. g. JWT w/ RSA keys). The best way you see if a token has expired is by trying to use it.

Yeah, pika is more of an ID system vs. prefixed-api-key which seems to be more oriented around just API keys, which makes sense. However, advantages of timestamps in IDs are that you can create unique IDs based on the current timestamp; bits which, in other ID systems, are usually just random - which feels like a waste imo. Also, knowing when a resource was created when debugging is very helpful.

I've used MongoDB quite a bit and I don't like that it has the timestamp in the id. That's unnecessary information.

With UUIDs I prefer UUID4 to UUID1 most of the time.

I prefer to only include the relevant information and for API keys the client doesn't usually need the time the key was created.

I don't agree. Your examples (UUID1, UUID4) are much longer strings and contain no useful information. UUID1 contains the device's MAC ID, UUID4 is just random bits.. vs a functional ID system like pika or Snowflakes which make use of those random bits by embedding a timestamp - something which might actually come in useful for some.

Of course if you don't like the id's that MongoDB generates by default you can always the supply your own. The only constraint on the _id field is that it be unique as we automatically apply a unique index. Effectively if you have a unique key for your data you should use _id for it as it saves you an index. (We always index _id).

(I work for MongoDB).

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