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UUIDs are Awesome

  • hex.cho.sh
  • If I generate a random 6-digit hex as an ID, how likely is a hash collision?
    • Side note, even if a hash collision occurs, all records remain in the Git history, so we don't need any collision checks.
  • Nonetheless, it seems very unlikely.
  • Let's try mathematical and computational approaches to verify this.
  • XUID

Resource

  • Autolinks with alphanumeric IDs
  • If every person on the planet generates a new UUID4 every second, we'd expect a collision to occur after about 10 years: https://qr.ae/prXSxM
  • Only after generating 1 billion UUIDs every second for the next 100 years, the probability of creating just one duplicate would be about 50%. Or, to put it another way, the probability of one duplicate would be about 50% if every person on earth owned 600 million UUIDs.