Unique IDs are easy on a single machine, but (just like cache invalidation) become surprisingly complex in a distributed system.
For example, how to assign unique MAC numbers to network cards without a centralised database that has to be modified for each card manufactured? Vendors get address space blocks, and probably split these further into blocks for factories and production lines.
Generating unique autoincrement row numbers in a distributed database or process IDs in a cluster is also a complex problem if it has to be faster than any communication between the nodes.
Designing the layout of IP addresses, architecture of DHCP and DNS, and the very idea of URLs are fantastic pieces of Computer Science work. Easy to use, but a hard problem for the original designers!
But of course, I have no idea what Karlton had in mind with the quote. "Naming things" as "assigning unique identifiers" always felt appropriate with cache invalidation, as both are problems that are easy for single cores/machines, but very complex in distributed systems.
For example, how to assign unique MAC numbers to network cards without a centralised database that has to be modified for each card manufactured? Vendors get address space blocks, and probably split these further into blocks for factories and production lines.
Generating unique autoincrement row numbers in a distributed database or process IDs in a cluster is also a complex problem if it has to be faster than any communication between the nodes.
Designing the layout of IP addresses, architecture of DHCP and DNS, and the very idea of URLs are fantastic pieces of Computer Science work. Easy to use, but a hard problem for the original designers!
But of course, I have no idea what Karlton had in mind with the quote. "Naming things" as "assigning unique identifiers" always felt appropriate with cache invalidation, as both are problems that are easy for single cores/machines, but very complex in distributed systems.