Good questions!
There are three types of links:
- “Credit card” links (e.g. xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx)
- “Short-form” links (e.g. _xxxxxxxxxx)
- “Static” links (e.g. Sxxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx)
The first two types are just different encodings for the same thing; they both map to anonymously shared projects. This was the only type of shared projects until we introduced static links in the most recent arcade release. Once they are published, they can never be updated/changed. In other words, they’re read-only. The reason you see both is because short-form links are what we give you in the share dialog and long-form links are what you get in the URL bar when you actually navigate to the share page.
Static links are the new default for sharing while logged in to a MakeCode account. These links point to the most recently shared version of a project and are updated every time you do another share. You can still share the old way, there’s a checkbox in the share dialog that is checked by default.
Now, to answer your question as to why we have both short-form and credit card links, it’s actually quite simple!
- Short-form links look better when copy/pasted. That’s why you get these by default in the share dialog
- Credit card links are easier to physically write down or read out loud. For example, if you are in a classroom and need to write something up on the board, students will have a much easier time writing down a bunch of numbers than a series of lower case and upper case letters