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Ask HN: API Design, id's or objects?
I'm curious, what do you guys prefer in your methods/functions/members, object or the object's id, specially in context of statically typed languages (C#/Java/Scala)
Pros of object itself: 1) More typesafe calls. 2) Get once from persistence, no need to get again
Cons: Most of the time no need for the actual object, just id would do, so having it costs extra to get from persistence.
A mixture of these techniques, as far as I can see, would only have cons of both and pros of none.
Also, there's a simple work around for keeping only ids and yet be typesafe- wrap ids into a 'MiniClass' for each class.
What are your views of pros and cons of either and a mixture, lets discuss!