Re: org-id fixups and minor changes

[Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net>]

Gustav Wikström <gustav@whil.se> writes:

> Yeah – you’re right, I didn’t think that much about automated ID
> creation so I stopped at seconds. I agree that it would be more
> general with more precision but that will also add some more noise
> into each ID. Maybe that’s not significant. But I also wonder how
> common it will be to try to batch-add ID’s…? I have nothing against
> adding more precision though, if that’s requested. What do you think?

For any one user, it probably won't cause a problem.  But remember that
Org is used by many people.  If you add a method that can cause ID
conflicts, it's inevitable that it will happen to someone eventually.
It would be best to avoid conflicts in the first place.

> I wouldn’t mind changing the default from random to timestamp. But I’m
> not so sure about all the others?

Please don't change the default, because the default works, and has for
years.

>  One thing that complicates things is the way attachment functionality
> parse the ID. If we use timestamps as the default ID it makes sense to
> change the default way org-attach parses the ID into folders as
> well. Something like “YYYY/MM/DD_and_the_rest”. But that will be a
> breaking changing. The existing folder-structure for attachments
> wouldn’t match the new any longer. Cleverness in code might solve the
> breakage though… If there is interest in changing the default I can
> try to solve the issue with the breaking change as well.

Especially, please do not make a change like this.  Attempted cleverness
such as that should be avoided, because, considering how many users use
Org, each with their own customizations and unique workflows, it's
inevitable that such a change will lead to lost (or misplaced) data for
some users.

As a completely optional feature, it could be useful, however it would
need to cope with both storage formats, because existing users would
likely have data stored in the old locations when they enable the
feature.

Consider as well that more third-party software which uses Org formats
is becoming popular, including non-Emacs software.  Changes like these
are much more likely to cause breakage and incompatibilities.  For
example, software like Orgzly and org-web are not yet even fully
compatible with all of Org, but they make Org formats useful on
platforms which are hard to use Emacs on.  I think we should try not to
make the work of those authors more difficult by making Org hard to keep
up with.  :)