On Saturday, Oct 11, 2003, at 14:58 Europe/Rome, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:...How about naming files like
3948494-some-descriptive-name-for-humans-here.xml
It's like suggesting to have a BugID "39484-my-file-can't-be-found" as the primary key of the bug table in mysql, just because people might want to edit bugs by hand inside the database!!
When you have bug emails, you get the bug ID which is unique and semanticless....
You usually get the bug ID *and* the title, which lets you decide whether you're interested in it or not without having to look up the ID.
...Think about TCP/IP: instead of placing a human identifier at the IP level, they used a lookup mechanism. This is exactly the paradigm that we should follow, IMO.
Agreed, provided the usability of this lookup is good enough to:
-Easily find out what learning object a CVS (or other "change event") message is about
-Easily select a learning object for editing, review, etc, without needing complex tools
Also, the comparison with TCP/IP brings another idea, instead of using big numbers for IDs they could be split like IP addresses to make them more readable.
Some people have a hard time reading long chains of numbers, I am one of these and for me
2003.332.221
is much more easier to read (and to spell out) than
2003332221
Where I have a hard time figuring out the number of 3's and 2's (you'll see when you are my age ;-)
I'm using 2003 in front as starting with the year in which the ID was assigned gives some useful context. Mixing concerns, I know, but also makes for an easy way of splitting LOs in subdirectories for storage, to avoid having millions of files in a single directory.
...Messy. what would something like this behave?
22003-this-is-first-doc.xml 22003-this-is-second-doc.xml ...
that's what I meant by the system having to ensure the uniqueness of IDs. It is certainly problematic.
I agree that a pure ID for naming pieces of content might be better, provided lookup is super-easy and doesn't get in the way of editing, keeping track of changes etc., and the ID's stay readable and "communicable".
-Bertrand
