In ricochet-qt, contacts were stored with a sequential numeric ID, and
that was used in various places to refer to the contact uniquely. The
habit carried over here in an attempt to keep configuration
compatibility.
These IDs are error prone (particularly over RPC) and unnecessary. This
removes the entire concept and uses addresses to index and refer
uniquely to contacts everywhere.
Using the contact ID (which is about to disappear, anyway) to refer to
contacts in commands makes for an awkward UX.
For a differently awkward UX, use the shortest (>3) unambiguous prefix
of the hostname instead. This is stable, always typable, kind of
memorable, and seems like a decent compromise for now.
ricochet-cli can act as a headless backend, so for now there is no point
to having a separate backend program. It may be reintroduced later for
multiprocess use by other frontends -- to be determined.
John Brooks