Challenge 2: Unique ID Generation

desccode

Challenge 2: Make globally unique IDs across distributed nodes. Sounds simple, but there are tradeoffs between uniqueness guarantees, performance, and coordination requirements.

What it Does

The Approach

Combined three sources of uniqueness:

  1. Node ID - Each node has a unique identifier

  2. Timestamp - Millisecond precision

  3. Counter - For multiple IDs within same millisecond

This gives us practical uniqueness without complex coordination protocols.

Trade-offs

Pros:

Cons:

For this challenge, simple and fast beats perfect. Real systems might need UUIDs, Snowflake IDs, or other approaches depending on requirements.

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