[Zope3-Users] Re: zope.intid and UUIDs

[Derek Richardson]

Benji York wrote:
> Derek Richardson wrote:
>> I wrote most of it today and there is more code shared between the two 
>> than is different. The main differences are:
> 
>> * OOBTrees, instead of an IOBTree and an OIBTree
>> * Different events are fired when an object is registered and 
>> unregistered (they could be merged, but this is easy 
>> backwards-compatibility)
>> * _generateId() is, of course, different
>>
>> The rest is pretty much copied and pasted, even most of the tests.
> 
> This suggests to me that you instead want to /use/ an int ID utility, 
> not /be/ (a mutated) one.  Unless there's a very compelling reason to 
> copy all that functionality composition would be much cleaner.

I definitely don't want to be an *int* id utility. I may want to be, 
however, a uuid variety of an *id* utility, of which another variety 
would be int, and perhaps others, as well.

I see no compelling reason to copy all that functionality, which is why 
I'm exploring alternatives.

*Using* an int id utility, though, doesn't seem to cleanly solve the 
problem, which makes me wonder if I'm understanding you. If you mean use 
the intid utility to map keyrefs to int ids and then map int ids to 
uuids, this has a few problems. What I want to vary is the 
implementation - I want to keep the same interface. This would be 
keeping, and adding another layer to, the implementation and I'll still 
have to re-implement the interface on top of it. That's more work than 
just copying and doesn't reduce the copying at all, as I see it. Plus, 
it'll be (perhaps marginally) slower.

If you mean use the intid utility by instantiating one and then changing 
the data structures and _generateId() and the events at runtime, this 
would indeed solve the need to copy and paste. However, this seems like 
an obfuscating solution - who would guess that what is masquerading as 
an intid utility is really a uuid utility? Perhaps that's my 
static-typing background speaking, but it seems cleaner to have an 
"abstract" id utility and then write 10 lines of code to subclass and 
turn it into an int id utility and then another 10 lines for uuids.

I sense that I'm missing the point here. Perhaps you can elaborate on 
what you mean when you say "use" and "collaboration." I usually know 
what those terms mean, but I'm not sure I am getting it in this context.

Derek