launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Robert Collins <robertc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 11:46 AM, John Arbash Meinel
<john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Why can't it be written as part of the object, and if you want to insert
> a message into the middle, you have to rewrite all of the rest? I guess
> I don't really see why it has to be write-once.

It can be, thats the trade off I mentioned : rewriting 1000 messages
to have a higher index number is expensive. Supporting it at all is
more complex than not supporting it - and supporting it implies
unstable urls for something that users (reasonably) expect to be
stable.


> So is the issue that if there are hidden messages you shouldn't get gaps
> in the numbering?
>
> Is it something that some users can see these hidden messages and some
> can't? What is the handle on a "hidden" message for people who can
> actually see it?

Messages are hidden by administrators to deal with spam and offensive
language. Another reason to keep the index stable is to let
administrators unhide things if a mistake is made.

-Rob