4 ms·

Tim Berners-Lee: Cool URIs don't change (1998)

115 points by vog 16y ago

smanek 16y ago
Funny to think how 'document based' the web was back then. The concept of webapps must have been completely foreign. I'll bet he really hates URL shorteners. Interestingly, the examples he gave of good URIs (e.g., http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9814/nsf9814.htm http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9814/nsf9814.htm) are still working 12 years later, while the bad ones are broken (e.g., http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/pubsys/browser/odbrowse.pl http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/pubsys/browser/odbrowse.pl).
- HerraBRE 16y ago
  3rd party URL shorteners are a horrible idea. Why would we add an extra point of failure to links, the very fabric of the WWW? Sites that maintain their own shorteners for their own content are really the only acceptable exception, and even then it's still an extra thing that can break.
  - lsc 16y ago
    URL shorteners are already starting to be seen by the anti-spam community as being a little bit like open SMTP relays. Several of my customers have been listed on the SBL because they ran unauthenticated URL shorteners, and of course, those shorteners were used to get around anti-spam URL blacklists.
    - soult 16y ago
      Do you mean that their server IPs got blacklisted? Or did the URL shortener domain just get added to a URL blacklist?
      - lsc 16y ago
        Both, if I remember correctly.
  - jcn 16y ago
    Though interestingly, he doesn't really mention 301 redirects. Is the point that URLs shouldn't change, or that changing URLs shouldn't break the web (or a little of both)? Considering that no URL shortener I know of will actually let you change the underlying URL it points to, unless the hosting service decides to change what the underlying URL actually points to (tsk tsk), the shortener is pretty much a canonical pointer to that data, despite the fact that the hash doesn't often give much information about the underlying data. Also: see http://www.301works.org http://www.301works.org
    - soult 16y ago
      If you actually visit 301works.org you will notice that there are a whopping _seven_ URL shorteners that have uploaded any data at all in the past 6 months: - rn.tl / lensrentals.com - nbl.gs - qr.cx - tiny.cc - urlcut.com - url.ie - va.mu And to be honest, those 7 shorteners aren't exactly big fish in the URL shortener business.
      - jcn 16y ago
        I did, and it seems that at least bit.ly data is uploaded daily, but your point still stands - 301works does not have anything close to 100% shortener coverage. http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3A301works&sort=-publicdate http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3A301work...
        soult 16y ago
        Unfortunately that is not bit.ly uploading any data. It is the effort of a few people (me included) that scrapes bit.ly and uploads it to archive.org. Despite claiming otherwise, bit.ly hasn't uploaded a single short url to 301Works yet.
- z92 16y ago
  Document based web ended by 1995, and by 1998 most of all major sites were webapps. Majority of document based sites were carry ons from early 90s. There was no ruby but there were PHP, Coldfusion and Java/JSP. And ASP was just released.
  - z92 16y ago
    I was referring to parent's claim "[in 1998] the concept of webapps must have been completely foreign".
- MatthewPhillips 16y ago
  I miss the document based web. Actually what I miss is the "amateur web". I remember in 1994, when I first got the internet, typing in "Star wars" and visiting the many many fansites with random pictures, midi files, fan fiction, etc. Those sites don't exist any more. Sure, there are still some amateur sites out there, but they're always pretty professional, not the type done by complete-amateurs who just want to share something they're passionate about. Do a Google search for any hobby, fictional universe, sports team and see how many pages it takes you to find a "geocities" type of site.
  - smanek 16y ago
    Tools have been built to help amateurs better share what they want. I guarantee Tumblr + Posterous + Weebly + fanfiction.net + wikia have far more 'amateur' sites and content on any topic you're interested in, than the entire internet in aggregate in 1994.
    - 9ec4c12949a4f3 16y ago
      There was something fun about going to the virtual broomcloset for your space-quest fan info, where as a Wiki is very sterile.
    - MatthewPhillips 16y ago
      +1, very good point. The discovering these sites is much harder than in 1994. Professional sites dominate search to a degree that finding amateur sites requires much more work.
  - Jem 16y ago
    There is still a big 'market' in amateur fan sites - thefanlistings.org is a good start if you're into that sort of thing.
  - dantheman 16y ago
    I think a lot of those sites got replaced by blogs, or content specific services - no need to build an image gallery when you can use flickr, etc.
iwwr 16y ago
One mitigating tactic for websites linking other people's content is to create a local copy and display that copy if the original content has been removed or de-linked. Though this may not be 100% kosher copyright-wise. But speaking of preserving old link structures, would you suggest a strategy for doing so?
- nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
  On my own blog, I have gone through several movements, either from one blogging platform to another, or more recently, deciding that I liked /blog/title/ better than /blog/year/month/title/. In each case, I have been very careful to ensure that I have a sufficient set of mod_rewrite rules configured in Apache that any of my old URLs will redirect the user to the new URL. In the case of changing structure wholesale, it was as simple as setting up `RewriteRule ^/blog/\d+/\d+/(.+)$ /blog/$1 [L,R=301]` In previous cases, I had to get a lot more specific; eg. articles with the same title would have different generated URLs depending on the blog software, so I would need to handle that as a redirect as well.
mise 16y ago
The best snippet for me: "Think of the URI space as an abstract space, perfectly organized. Then, make a mapping onto whatever reality you actually use to implement it."
radagaisus 16y ago
I really like the historical note: "Historical note: At the end of the 20th century when this was written, "cool" was an epithet of approval particularly among young, indicating trendiness, quality, or appropriateness. In the rush to stake our DNS territory involved the choice of domain name and URI path were sometimes directed more toward apparent "coolness" than toward usefulness or longevity. This note is an attempt to redirect the energy behind the quest for coolness."
thefreshteapot 16y ago
This is a must read! Every company I have worked at with legacy sites to port/maintain have yet to allocate any resources to this problem. No matter how often I suggest it. Now we have a great reference for our bosses and selling to clients of the importance of it.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
js2 16y ago
Also see http://daringfireball.net/2007/03/blank_slate http://daringfireball.net/2007/03/blank_slate and scroll down to "Yes, even URLs are designed"
phil 16y ago
A classic. This keeps getting more credible as it ages. Now it's been at the same URI for 13 years.

115 points by vog 16y ago

Funny to think how 'document based' the web was back then. The concept of webapps must have been completely foreign. I'll bet he really hates URL shorteners. Interestingly, the examples he gave of good URIs (e.g., http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9814/nsf9814.htm http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9814/nsf9814.htm) are still working 12 years later, while the bad ones are broken (e.g., http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/pubsys/browser/odbrowse.pl http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/pubsys/browser/odbrowse.pl).

HerraBRE 16y ago
3rd party URL shorteners are a horrible idea. Why would we add an extra point of failure to links, the very fabric of the WWW? Sites that maintain their own shorteners for their own content are really the only acceptable exception, and even then it's still an extra thing that can break.
- lsc 16y ago
  URL shorteners are already starting to be seen by the anti-spam community as being a little bit like open SMTP relays. Several of my customers have been listed on the SBL because they ran unauthenticated URL shorteners, and of course, those shorteners were used to get around anti-spam URL blacklists.
  - soult 16y ago
    Do you mean that their server IPs got blacklisted? Or did the URL shortener domain just get added to a URL blacklist?
    - lsc 16y ago
      Both, if I remember correctly.
- jcn 16y ago
  Though interestingly, he doesn't really mention 301 redirects. Is the point that URLs shouldn't change, or that changing URLs shouldn't break the web (or a little of both)? Considering that no URL shortener I know of will actually let you change the underlying URL it points to, unless the hosting service decides to change what the underlying URL actually points to (tsk tsk), the shortener is pretty much a canonical pointer to that data, despite the fact that the hash doesn't often give much information about the underlying data. Also: see http://www.301works.org http://www.301works.org
  - soult 16y ago
    If you actually visit 301works.org you will notice that there are a whopping _seven_ URL shorteners that have uploaded any data at all in the past 6 months: - rn.tl / lensrentals.com - nbl.gs - qr.cx - tiny.cc - urlcut.com - url.ie - va.mu And to be honest, those 7 shorteners aren't exactly big fish in the URL shortener business.
    - jcn 16y ago
      I did, and it seems that at least bit.ly data is uploaded daily, but your point still stands - 301works does not have anything close to 100% shortener coverage. http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3A301works&sort=-publicdate http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3A301work...
      - soult 16y ago
        Unfortunately that is not bit.ly uploading any data. It is the effort of a few people (me included) that scrapes bit.ly and uploads it to archive.org. Despite claiming otherwise, bit.ly hasn't uploaded a single short url to 301Works yet.
z92 16y ago
Document based web ended by 1995, and by 1998 most of all major sites were webapps. Majority of document based sites were carry ons from early 90s. There was no ruby but there were PHP, Coldfusion and Java/JSP. And ASP was just released.
- z92 16y ago
  I was referring to parent's claim "[in 1998] the concept of webapps must have been completely foreign".
MatthewPhillips 16y ago
I miss the document based web. Actually what I miss is the "amateur web". I remember in 1994, when I first got the internet, typing in "Star wars" and visiting the many many fansites with random pictures, midi files, fan fiction, etc. Those sites don't exist any more. Sure, there are still some amateur sites out there, but they're always pretty professional, not the type done by complete-amateurs who just want to share something they're passionate about. Do a Google search for any hobby, fictional universe, sports team and see how many pages it takes you to find a "geocities" type of site.
- smanek 16y ago
  Tools have been built to help amateurs better share what they want. I guarantee Tumblr + Posterous + Weebly + fanfiction.net + wikia have far more 'amateur' sites and content on any topic you're interested in, than the entire internet in aggregate in 1994.
  - 9ec4c12949a4f3 16y ago
    There was something fun about going to the virtual broomcloset for your space-quest fan info, where as a Wiki is very sterile.
  - MatthewPhillips 16y ago
    +1, very good point. The discovering these sites is much harder than in 1994. Professional sites dominate search to a degree that finding amateur sites requires much more work.
- Jem 16y ago
  There is still a big 'market' in amateur fan sites - thefanlistings.org is a good start if you're into that sort of thing.
- dantheman 16y ago
  I think a lot of those sites got replaced by blogs, or content specific services - no need to build an image gallery when you can use flickr, etc.

iwwr 16y ago

One mitigating tactic for websites linking other people's content is to create a local copy and display that copy if the original content has been removed or de-linked. Though this may not be 100% kosher copyright-wise. But speaking of preserving old link structures, would you suggest a strategy for doing so?

nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
On my own blog, I have gone through several movements, either from one blogging platform to another, or more recently, deciding that I liked /blog/title/ better than /blog/year/month/title/. In each case, I have been very careful to ensure that I have a sufficient set of mod_rewrite rules configured in Apache that any of my old URLs will redirect the user to the new URL. In the case of changing structure wholesale, it was as simple as setting up `RewriteRule ^/blog/\d+/\d+/(.+)$ /blog/$1 [L,R=301]` In previous cases, I had to get a lot more specific; eg. articles with the same title would have different generated URLs depending on the blog software, so I would need to handle that as a redirect as well.

mise 16y ago

The best snippet for me: "Think of the URI space as an abstract space, perfectly organized. Then, make a mapping onto whatever reality you actually use to implement it."

radagaisus 16y ago

I really like the historical note: "Historical note: At the end of the 20th century when this was written, "cool" was an epithet of approval particularly among young, indicating trendiness, quality, or appropriateness. In the rush to stake our DNS territory involved the choice of domain name and URI path were sometimes directed more toward apparent "coolness" than toward usefulness or longevity. This note is an attempt to redirect the energy behind the quest for coolness."

thefreshteapot 16y ago

This is a must read! Every company I have worked at with legacy sites to port/maintain have yet to allocate any resources to this problem. No matter how often I suggest it. Now we have a great reference for our bosses and selling to clients of the importance of it.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

js2 16y ago

Also see http://daringfireball.net/2007/03/blank_slate http://daringfireball.net/2007/03/blank_slate and scroll down to "Yes, even URLs are designed"

phil 16y ago

A classic. This keeps getting more credible as it ages. Now it's been at the same URI for 13 years.