<![CDATA[UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason"]]>UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason"

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/topic/aa9d9dbb-f813-4b6c-be4b-e76035562050/uuids-are-so-funny-today-because-almost-all-of-their-deployments-is-we-take-a-string-of-mostly-random-bits-but-give-it-structure-for-no-apparent-reasonRSS for NodeTue, 26 May 2026 15:00:29 GMTMon, 25 May 2026 20:34:11 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 21:09:18 GMT]]>@whitequark @ramsey I've only ever seen version 4 (unstructured random) in production that i can recall

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://ioc.exchange/users/azonenberg/statuses/116637260766300349https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://ioc.exchange/users/azonenberg/statuses/116637260766300349Mon, 25 May 2026 21:09:18 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 21:09:10 GMT]]>@whitequark i like UUIDs because someone else has already solved the problem of "how to make thing unique" for me and i don't have to think about it

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/ratsnakegames/statuses/116637260209169031https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/ratsnakegames/statuses/116637260209169031Mon, 25 May 2026 21:09:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 21:08:41 GMT]]>@ramsey @whitequark yeah, at a previous job we used v7 uuids with for request IDs with a single-character signifying the source of the request and a freeform suffix (guaranteed to be delimited by a non-\w character for ease of splitting).

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://gts.chuuni.solutions/users/saikou/statuses/01KSGFFVRGSW6P1AH2YYWVCGK2https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://gts.chuuni.solutions/users/saikou/statuses/01KSGFFVRGSW6P1AH2YYWVCGK2Mon, 25 May 2026 21:08:41 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 21:06:51 GMT]]>@ramsey oh, I didn't know this!

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/whitequark/statuses/116637251085102701https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/whitequark/statuses/116637251085102701Mon, 25 May 2026 21:06:51 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:54:26 GMT]]>@whitequark@treehouse.systems The "structure" makes them easier to handle for human brains and they are an RFC that is implemented in a lot of places.

I'd say they've gotten developer experience right by accident.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://pleroma.envs.net/objects/75a6188e-afff-46bb-9b02-50167720551dhttps://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://pleroma.envs.net/objects/75a6188e-afff-46bb-9b02-50167720551dMon, 25 May 2026 20:54:26 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:52:09 GMT]]>@whitequark Most applications that use UUIDs these days tend to use version 7 UUIDs, which use milliseconds since the Unix epoch as the most significant bits. This embeds the creation timestamp in the ID and allows for sorting, while also adding in sufficient randomness so they're not incremental and multiple systems can generate them with low probability of collision.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://phpc.social/users/ramsey/statuses/116637193336984496https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://phpc.social/users/ramsey/statuses/116637193336984496Mon, 25 May 2026 20:52:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:47:51 GMT]]>@dysfun @whitequark GUIDs and UUIDs are the same, except for the order of the bytes in binary form. For UUIDs, all bytes are in network byte order (big-endian). In a GUID, the order of the bytes are reversed in each grouping for the first 64 bits and stored in little-endian order. The remaining 64 bits are stored in network byte order. Both string representations are the same. Who knows why. 🤷‍♂️

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://phpc.social/users/ramsey/statuses/116637176378890671https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://phpc.social/users/ramsey/statuses/116637176378890671Mon, 25 May 2026 20:47:51 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:44:14 GMT]]>@whitequark Yes, but it takes a lot of characters. Particulary in protocols like SIP where you don't want to spend a lot of bytes for your message (you don't want fragementation), having a SIP-stack that just puts in UUIDs can really cause problems. Plus for SIP you want a variable number of randomness for different parts. While you might want 64 bits for your Call-ID, the From:- and To:-Tags are fine with 16 bits.
Again, every byte saved in the header saves you from problems.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://f-ckendehoelle.de/users/casandro/statuses/116637162162047161https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://f-ckendehoelle.de/users/casandro/statuses/116637162162047161Mon, 25 May 2026 20:44:14 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:42:48 GMT]]>@whitequark Once constructed, I have literally never seen anybody ever care about the specific fields. There's no reason for it to be divided up asymmetrically because the only things people do with those sorts of uids is bit compare the whole thing, or print as text in hex.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/wrosecrans/statuses/116637156562685362https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/wrosecrans/statuses/116637156562685362Mon, 25 May 2026 20:42:48 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:42:22 GMT]]>@nyovaya they are the same thing

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/whitequark/statuses/116637154823282886https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/whitequark/statuses/116637154823282886Mon, 25 May 2026 20:42:22 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:41:59 GMT]]>@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems I thought Microsoft made GUIDs popular?

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://transfem.social/notes/amp8kwua397405pahttps://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://transfem.social/notes/amp8kwua397405paMon, 25 May 2026 20:41:59 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:40:16 GMT]]>@casandro 124 bits of randomness is enough for basically any application where UUIDs are used as references

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/whitequark/statuses/116637146585873817https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/whitequark/statuses/116637146585873817Mon, 25 May 2026 20:40:16 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:40:04 GMT]]>@whitequark no, it doesn't. but you've already generated them then you just throw them away because they've arbitrarily decided to mark some of them with a constant.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/dysfun/statuses/116637145775426943https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/dysfun/statuses/116637145775426943Mon, 25 May 2026 20:40:04 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:39:21 GMT]]>@dysfun i don't think 124 vs 128 bits of randomness makes any salient difference

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/whitequark/statuses/116637142995992688https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/whitequark/statuses/116637142995992688Mon, 25 May 2026 20:39:21 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:39:10 GMT]]>@whitequark What makes this stranger is that there's a lot of software around that uses external dependencies to create UUIDs to act as random strings... even when the enthropy to character ratio would be important. After all rolling your own routine is trivial and fast... and allows you to cram in 6.5 bits per character easily.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://f-ckendehoelle.de/users/casandro/statuses/116637142241422640https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://f-ckendehoelle.de/users/casandro/statuses/116637142241422640Mon, 25 May 2026 20:39:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:38:45 GMT]]>@stevestreza @whitequark If it works...

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://masto.hackers.town/users/drwho/statuses/116637140617463832https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://masto.hackers.town/users/drwho/statuses/116637140617463832Mon, 25 May 2026 20:38:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:38:45 GMT]]>@whitequark actually i remember microsoft more for GUIDs than UUIDs

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/dysfun/statuses/116637140596493607https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/dysfun/statuses/116637140596493607Mon, 25 May 2026 20:38:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:38:33 GMT]]>@whitequark Pretty much. Plus, MS has its own special variant that only they use.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://masto.hackers.town/users/drwho/statuses/116637139807453317https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://masto.hackers.town/users/drwho/statuses/116637139807453317Mon, 25 May 2026 20:38:33 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:38:19 GMT]]>@whitequark java stuff likes them as well, that probably didn't hurt.

what really upsets me though is your randomness library doesn't actually support a bit at a time because that would be silly, so of course you just grab 128 bits and then drop 4 on the floor and waste them.

it's a silly thing, but when you're making it worse in the process...

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/dysfun/statuses/116637138916423932https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/dysfun/statuses/116637138916423932Mon, 25 May 2026 20:38:19 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:37:48 GMT]]>@whitequark The funniest is when people store them as strings in their database.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://indieweb.social/users/stevestreza/statuses/116637136902342238https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://indieweb.social/users/stevestreza/statuses/116637136902342238Mon, 25 May 2026 20:37:48 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to UUIDs are so funny today because almost all of their deployments is "we take a string of mostly-random bits but give it structure for no apparent reason" on Mon, 25 May 2026 20:36:03 GMT]]>it's true that you could populate some of those bits with predictable sequences to avoid clashing (a la snowflake) but guess what: you can do this to a hex string or a number (as does snowflake). i think the only reason UUIDs are as popular as they are today is Microsoft?

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/whitequark/statuses/116637130022714452https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/whitequark/statuses/116637130022714452Mon, 25 May 2026 20:36:03 GMT