4 ms·

I'm not so negative. The double slash provides a significant visual differentiator that a single colon would not. It may "waste" paper but it saves time.

• goto11 6y ago
  In what way does it save time?
  • melvinroest 6y ago
    Not grandparent but it saves time the same way syntax highlighting saves time. You simply recognize the difference faster. With http://example.com http://example.com it's quicker to distinguish the protocol (http) and the domain name (example.com). Compare that to http:example.com and it might take a bit longer at first glance (to some people), because they read over the : and then need to do a quick linear scan before they spot the : and are then able to distinguish http vs example.com Given that one sees a lot of domain names, I'd say it'd save a few hours of everyone's life in the aggregate.
    • goto11 6y ago
      But humans rarely need to parse URL's into components but often need to read them aloud or type them. The extra characters make this slower and more error prone. For most user interaction purposes the URL is just an opaque string. Only the browser need to actually parse the URL.
      • krapp 6y ago
        I don't think it's been common for most people to need to directly type or read URLs aloud for a long time.
        • goto11 6y ago
          The article is more than a decade old.
    • DarknessFalls 6y ago
      Should have been a ligature for it, instead of the actual ://.