🔗 Opaque IDs, editable titles in TIL URLs

What makes a URL trustworthy and ergonomic? Jake Worth discusses the innovative design behind Hashrocket's daily learning site, Today I Learned (TIL). Key features include opaque IDs that prevent leaking information while maintaining a permalink that remains unchanged even if post titles are edited. This allows for dynamic URL structures where the identifier for each post is a 10-character slug, enhancing usability. The process of creating these slugs is detailed, showcasing how the function generates unique identifiers and interacts with the database. Worth reflects on how these features contribute to user engagement and TIL's success, emphasizing the potential for building custom solutions in web frameworks. Whether using Elixir with Phoenix or Ruby on Rails, developers are encouraged to create paths that fit their app’s narrative.