[Sugar-devel] On datastore object IDs

[Chris Marshall]

Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 19:23, Benjamin M.
> Schwartz<bmschwar at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>> Walter Bender wrote:
>>> Use case: I send you a presentation that refers to objects in the
>>> datastore. I need to send you those objects too, but I would not like
>>> to have to use some additional layer of reference.
>> Heh.  We don't support inter-object dependencies.  It's amazing how we
>> keep having the same discussion over and over, though:
>>
>> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/sugar/2007-April/002210.html
>>
>> Maybe this time we will come to the other conclusion?
> 
> I'm still leaning in favour of self-contained bundles for both
> activities and journal entries. Both options have ups and downs but I
> think that the complexity of dealing with broken links/dependencies
> conflicts with our goal of simplicity.

One of the concepts from git that I really like is the
concept of the cryptographic data object IDs.  It allows
one to easily locate and compare objects and other git
constructs.

A similar type of globally, unique identifier could
allow migration, reference, and reconstitution of journal
objects or activities.  That might alleviate one problem
of broken links/dependencies in that you would definitely
know what should be there [at the other end of the link].

Maybe a type of Journal entry like "Bobby's Photo" with the
link and a "Get the Photo" action or starting/resuming an
Activity with it would get the needed object.

--Chris