How do I properly link to a post? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by Whisdeer@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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So I know about /c/community@example.host for communities and /u/user@example.host for users, but how do I link to individual posts in a way that won't be a hassle for people in other instances?

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[-] hal_canary@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 years ago

it ought to be something simple like /p/<ID>

[-] TeaHands@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Problem is posts have a different ID on each instance they federate to. It's a bit of a bugger.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 years ago

It seems dumb to me that the fediverse doesn't use UUIDs

[-] TeaHands@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah I wonder if the logic is that since instances don't know about each other (until, of course, they do) it would be possible to have duplicate IDs betwixt them so would be inherently unreliable. Idk, hopefully all of this gets sorted out by someone way smarter than me.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago

UUIDs are a computer science concept where you use some math and some black magic to guarantee that you have generated a unique identifier, even in an environment with federation. This concept predates the fediverse since this is needed for lots of different use-cases. Basically anything with horizontal scaling, orchestration, or p2p needs something like this in order to prevent collisions.