6 ms·
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. I
by smanek 15y 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 15y ago3rd 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 15y agoURL 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.
- jcn 15y agoThough 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 15y agoIf 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 15y agoI 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 15y agoUnfortunately 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 15y agoDocument 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 15y agoI was referring to parent's claim "[in 1998] the concept of webapps must have been completely foreign".
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoI 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 15y agoTools 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 15y agoThere was something fun about going to the virtual broomcloset for your space-quest fan info, where as a Wiki is very sterile.
- MatthewPhillips 15y 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 15y agoThere is still a big 'market' in amateur fan sites - thefanlistings.org is a good start if you're into that sort of thing.
- dantheman 15y agoI 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.