6 ms·

or go back to left to right reading. http//com.google.www. vs http//com.google.www./file.zip

by basch 6y ago

CydeWeys 6y ago
This is the real answer here. It's widely believed that domains working the opposite way of filesystem hierarchies and even URL paths was a huge design mistake. Think of how many billions of dollars have been lost over the years from account compromises resulting from people not correctly distinguishing yourbank.com/account/foobar from yourbank.com-account.info/foobar.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  1. The reason for the change is generally thought to be email: you read least specific to most specific from left to right, like non-American dates, e.g firstname.lastname@group.department.university.edu 2. also I think ! was used rather than . for some networks at some times. Certainly I’ve heard this anecdote from some early users of the internet (or maybe other computer networks) 3. Traditionally the dot is the zero-level or extra-top level domain, a bit like / for root in the Unix file system. Indeed if you use dig you may be familiar that it writes domains like “www.google.com.” My web browser only partly seems to accept this format.
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    > 2. also I think ! was used rather than . for some networks at some times. Certainly I’ve heard this anecdote from some early users of the internet (or maybe other computer networks) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path ! was used for manual routing from the source to the destination, when messages were copied from server to server via UUCP. People would write paths like ...!ucbvax!deptserver!myname , which means "you probably know how to get messages to ucbvax; from there, here's how to reach me".
    - elygre 6y ago
      ...!mcsun!nuug!fics!el here :-). Of course, those were actual routes, rather than just reverse hierarchies.
    - ayewo 6y ago
      And here's an example of an old business card using that format for an email address: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#/media/File:UUCP_Email_Address_.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#/media/File:UUCP_Email_Ad...
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Interesting, and makes sense, seeing as how the Web didn't yet exist when domain names were first invented, but email did. It does make sense that they were thus represented in a manner catering to that use case. In hindsight I guess we'd prefer if emails were backwards too, e.g. com.gmail@cydeweys
    - still_grokking 6y ago
      Only that the @ ("at") reads terribly than. So com.gmail/cydeweys maybe? Or it could be just an object in a global namespace (accesses through a protocol specific facade). So com.gmail.cydeweys
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        You could easily just use a different symbol, or pronounce it differently. We think it makes sense the way it is now, but that's only because we've all collectively gotten used to the meaning it has in email addresses. If it had had a different meaning all along then that would make sense to us. com.gmail.cydeweys doesn't really work because you need some way to distinguish that as an email address and not just a subdomain on com.gmail. So it really does need a different delimiter, like how you need a different delimiter in URLs when it switches from the domain to the path (and then also to the querystring and fragment).
        cestith 6y ago
        '@' was used to mean 'at' or 'each' for a long time before email addresses. Often in pricing. '12 @ $3' means twelve units priced at $3 each. It's referred to sometimes as 'commercial at', including its Unicode name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign It was used as 'at' in computing in Algol 68 where it was a shorthand for a keyword 'at'. It has a different application as 'at' in Dyalog APL.
        CydeWeys 6y ago
        It wasn't remotely as familiar to a broad audience back then as it is now, though. Considering that people accept its non-idiomatic use for website user names even now (which is the same as what I'm proposing no less), I don't think this would be a problem.
  - kuschku 6y ago
    > 3. Traditionally the dot is the zero-level or extra-top level domain, a bit like / for root in the Unix file system. Indeed if you use dig you may be familiar that it writes domains like “www.google.com.” My web browser only partly seems to accept this format. The browser actually handles it just fine, but some webservers refuse to handle it, despite it being a spec. Most famously Traefik and Caddy as webservers refuse to support these, just because their devs don’t understand the spec and think they know better (what a surprise, both are written in go after all) This actually causes quite a bit of trouble when you have internal systems resolving pretty much everything as local domain first, and some external webservers don’t support the spec. Most famously, caddyserver.com. itself is broken

or go back to left to right reading. http//com.google.www. vs http//com.google.www./file.zip

by basch 6y ago

or go back to left to right reading. http//com.google.www. vs http//com.google.www./file.zip

This is the real answer here. It's widely believed that domains working the opposite way of filesystem hierarchies and even URL paths was a huge design mistake. Think of how many billions of dollars have been lost over the years from account compromises resulting from people not correctly distinguishing yourbank.com/account/foobar from yourbank.com-account.info/foobar.

dan-robertson 6y ago
1. The reason for the change is generally thought to be email: you read least specific to most specific from left to right, like non-American dates, e.g firstname.lastname@group.department.university.edu 2. also I think ! was used rather than . for some networks at some times. Certainly I’ve heard this anecdote from some early users of the internet (or maybe other computer networks) 3. Traditionally the dot is the zero-level or extra-top level domain, a bit like / for root in the Unix file system. Indeed if you use dig you may be familiar that it writes domains like “www.google.com.” My web browser only partly seems to accept this format.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > 2. also I think ! was used rather than . for some networks at some times. Certainly I’ve heard this anecdote from some early users of the internet (or maybe other computer networks) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#Bang_path ! was used for manual routing from the source to the destination, when messages were copied from server to server via UUCP. People would write paths like ...!ucbvax!deptserver!myname , which means "you probably know how to get messages to ucbvax; from there, here's how to reach me".
  - elygre 6y ago
    ...!mcsun!nuug!fics!el here :-). Of course, those were actual routes, rather than just reverse hierarchies.
  - ayewo 6y ago
    And here's an example of an old business card using that format for an email address: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#/media/File:UUCP_Email_Address_.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#/media/File:UUCP_Email_Ad...
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Interesting, and makes sense, seeing as how the Web didn't yet exist when domain names were first invented, but email did. It does make sense that they were thus represented in a manner catering to that use case. In hindsight I guess we'd prefer if emails were backwards too, e.g. com.gmail@cydeweys
  - still_grokking 6y ago
    Only that the @ ("at") reads terribly than. So com.gmail/cydeweys maybe? Or it could be just an object in a global namespace (accesses through a protocol specific facade). So com.gmail.cydeweys
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      You could easily just use a different symbol, or pronounce it differently. We think it makes sense the way it is now, but that's only because we've all collectively gotten used to the meaning it has in email addresses. If it had had a different meaning all along then that would make sense to us. com.gmail.cydeweys doesn't really work because you need some way to distinguish that as an email address and not just a subdomain on com.gmail. So it really does need a different delimiter, like how you need a different delimiter in URLs when it switches from the domain to the path (and then also to the querystring and fragment).
      - cestith 6y ago
        '@' was used to mean 'at' or 'each' for a long time before email addresses. Often in pricing. '12 @ $3' means twelve units priced at $3 each. It's referred to sometimes as 'commercial at', including its Unicode name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign It was used as 'at' in computing in Algol 68 where it was a shorthand for a keyword 'at'. It has a different application as 'at' in Dyalog APL.
        CydeWeys 6y ago
        It wasn't remotely as familiar to a broad audience back then as it is now, though. Considering that people accept its non-idiomatic use for website user names even now (which is the same as what I'm proposing no less), I don't think this would be a problem.
- kuschku 6y ago
  > 3. Traditionally the dot is the zero-level or extra-top level domain, a bit like / for root in the Unix file system. Indeed if you use dig you may be familiar that it writes domains like “www.google.com.” My web browser only partly seems to accept this format. The browser actually handles it just fine, but some webservers refuse to handle it, despite it being a spec. Most famously Traefik and Caddy as webservers refuse to support these, just because their devs don’t understand the spec and think they know better (what a surprise, both are written in go after all) This actually causes quite a bit of trouble when you have internal systems resolving pretty much everything as local domain first, and some external webservers don’t support the spec. Most famously, caddyserver.com. itself is broken