Yes, I absolutely agree that good URLs are extremely useful, although personally I don't really like the long-string-of-text pattern, especially if it isn't actually significant. A short identifier is useful when sharing them offline: "HN article 14723409" or "YouTube video AQcSFsQyct8" or "forum thread 5705591"
For a blog, news, or other chronological content, I'd like to see a timestamp of some form. If it's rigidly hierarchical content, then a hierarchy (of which I should be able to remove 'subdirectories' to see the parent content) makes sense. Otherwise flat IDs are OK too.
Too bad browser developers seem to love hiding or mutilating them...
The string of text, if you are seriously trying to remember it (which I seriously doubt... do you really try to type in those sentence-long title slugs from memory?!) is subject to domain-specific forms of corruption, in the same way direct quotes from people or TV characters tend to be: you subtly change the grammar or replace a noun with a synonym with which you are more familiar.
Regardless: I am quite serious... do you seriously try to remember and type, from memory, URLs with title slugs?
Doubt he does that, however I collect some links in a text file and the ones with text in them are the ones I can identify instantly. The ones with just IDs are totally random as to what they are and usually requires a comment accompanying them in the file.
For a blog, news, or other chronological content, I'd like to see a timestamp of some form. If it's rigidly hierarchical content, then a hierarchy (of which I should be able to remove 'subdirectories' to see the parent content) makes sense. Otherwise flat IDs are OK too.
Too bad browser developers seem to love hiding or mutilating them...