4 ms·

It always strikes me as hilarious when printed books reference web URLs. Granted, URLs are meant to be permanent (the cool ones don't change, as they say) and a

by kqr 5y ago

It always strikes me as hilarious when printed books reference web URLs. Granted, URLs are meant to be permanent (the cool ones don't change, as they say) and any webmaster worth their salt will strive really hard for this. But c'mon. You think a website will outlive the useful lifespan of a printed book? Hah! You should see the age of some of the books I've found useful in the past few years.

dgellow 5y ago
What else do you want them to reference?
- notRobot 5y ago
  WebCite [1] was built for this in the past, but using archive.org is a better idea nowadays. Save a copy of the webpage to the archive if it doesn't already exist and link to it. Has the added advantage that anyone who goes to the link sees exactly what you saw when you linked to it, with no modifications. [1]: https://www.webcitation.org/ https://www.webcitation.org/
  - cxr 5y ago
    "Perma.cc helps scholars and courts create permalinks of the web sites they cite" <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10948033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10948033>
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    I think a service like webcitation is better because 1. Archive.org follows robots.txt rules - also used to remove content on request from owners (not sure if still do but I suppose they do) making it less sure than webcitation. 2. webcitation could also provide other services like - export citations for book or collections of books into one book of citations. 3. Similar citations tracking stuff that you can get on google scholare, how many other publications were citing this text or part of this website. on edit: obviously this is if webcitation or a similar service was still a going concern, pragmatically yes archive.org is better because functioning and taking new content to archive.
    - notRobot 5y ago
      The only reason I recommneded archive.org is that webcite is no longer taking submissions, and their HTTPS cert has expired. Other than that, I agree with you.
- KeepFlying 5y ago
  The Internet Archive at least since it'll keep a URL alive and consistent a lot longer. At least plain URLs can be manually passed to the internet archive for a lookup, but I'd love if publishers/authors made a habit of maintaining their source links (via shortlinks, published errata, etc). That said, even with how easy it is to update, Wikipedia suffers from this immensely. I can't count how many times I've tried to track back a source from a wiki and end up with a 404.
  - dusted 5y ago
    That rests on the assumption that IA will outlast everything else, which is unresasonable, if nothing else because, while it may be supported by the community, when Kahle becomes unavailable to the project for one reason or the other, there's no saying what will really happen to it.
    - chongli 5y ago
      The IA has well over 100 employees, possibly over 200 at this point. With a very strong mission statement, I have to imagine they have a very good culture dedicated to Brewster’s goals. I’m sure he’ll choose a very good successor. I’m sure he’s already taken considerable steps to codify his mission into a charter. He’s a very smart guy and he’s worked too hard to allow his vision to falter when he retires. Furthermore, archivist is a full blown profession with its own professional society. I’m sure IA will always be able to hire people who are serious about preserving and cataloguing information.
      - Mezzie 5y ago
        I'm curious who it's going to be and what field his successor will come from. As a coder/developer with an MLIS + a decade of library experience, in my experience there aren't that many people who grok both the tech and the politics/people aspect around preservation, which you would need to head IA. I wouldn't be shocked if, if IA is around in a few decades, they start expanding into educational partnerships to ensure the vision continues. Or institute fellowships. Or they may just inspire more people; IA's work was one of the things that convinced me to pursue an MLIS (as a girl, I was discouraged at the time from CS). Or we'll start seeing more degree specializations that mesh the two, like HCI concentrations.
- VelNZ 5y ago
  Personally I would save a copy in a standard format and make it available on a domain I control. I've done that in the past for scientific publications.
  - dgellow 5y ago
    That's only possible if you own the material, otherwise you may be distributing copyrighted content.
- kqr 5y ago
  Honestly? Go through the trouble and ask the author for a license to print the relevant parts along with the referencing material. The most egregious cases is when the author references their own web content!
notapenny 5y ago
I chuckle at something similar where books on programming languages are titled "The Definitive Guide to <Insert Programming Language>". Our industry changes, and fast. Everything is chaos.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
I think the greatest preponderance of technical books are written with a useful lifetime of at most 5 years, and frankly probably not that long.
- bzzzt 5y ago
  I divide technical books in two categories: - Those explaining a programming language, framework or application with a specific version. These books clearly have a lifespan related to the thing they are explaining and will often end up in second hand or wholesale shops. - Books explaining principles. It doesn't matter if they are 2 or 20 years old since the things they are explaining don't really change.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    Sure, but the greatest preponderance of programming books explain the first, also some books that seem to be explaining the second are really more tightly tied to a particular programming language or platform than they like to let on - like Clean Code with Java.
    - II2II 5y ago
      Which is almost entirely unique to programming books. Take a book on electronics, and a book discussing principles and a 20 year old book will be nearly as relevant as one published today. Take a book on physics and a 100 year old book will be be nearly as relevant as one published today. That doesn't mean the fields are unchanging. Modern electronics is definitely more sophisticated and much of classical physics has been superseded by modern physics. One definitely needs more modern treatments in order to work at the frontiers of these fields. Yet the principles are less ephemeral. On the other hand, software development is much more fad driven. The most basic principles may still apply, yet the application of those principles change (sometimes subtly and sometimes dramatically) due to a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
      - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
aspyct 5y ago
I have a printed book on AspectJ. Pretty sure it's past its "useful lifespan". As technologies age, so do anything that talks about them.
anchpop 5y ago
This is a use case of IPFS I think. Any IPFS "website" will remain available at its original IPFS content ID as long as at least one person is seeding it, so if a book referenced one the author could seed it to guarantee that the URL will continue to work as long as they're willing to keep it up (and any interested 3rd party could do the same)
- kqr 5y ago
  Yeah, but a printed book well outlives an author's good intentions, too. People underestimate the lifespan of books.

by kqr 5y ago

dgellow 5y ago

What else do you want them to reference?

notRobot 5y ago
WebCite [1] was built for this in the past, but using archive.org is a better idea nowadays. Save a copy of the webpage to the archive if it doesn't already exist and link to it. Has the added advantage that anyone who goes to the link sees exactly what you saw when you linked to it, with no modifications. [1]: https://www.webcitation.org/ https://www.webcitation.org/
- cxr 5y ago
  "Perma.cc helps scholars and courts create permalinks of the web sites they cite" <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10948033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10948033>
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  I think a service like webcitation is better because 1. Archive.org follows robots.txt rules - also used to remove content on request from owners (not sure if still do but I suppose they do) making it less sure than webcitation. 2. webcitation could also provide other services like - export citations for book or collections of books into one book of citations. 3. Similar citations tracking stuff that you can get on google scholare, how many other publications were citing this text or part of this website. on edit: obviously this is if webcitation or a similar service was still a going concern, pragmatically yes archive.org is better because functioning and taking new content to archive.
  - notRobot 5y ago
    The only reason I recommneded archive.org is that webcite is no longer taking submissions, and their HTTPS cert has expired. Other than that, I agree with you.
KeepFlying 5y ago
The Internet Archive at least since it'll keep a URL alive and consistent a lot longer. At least plain URLs can be manually passed to the internet archive for a lookup, but I'd love if publishers/authors made a habit of maintaining their source links (via shortlinks, published errata, etc). That said, even with how easy it is to update, Wikipedia suffers from this immensely. I can't count how many times I've tried to track back a source from a wiki and end up with a 404.
- dusted 5y ago
  That rests on the assumption that IA will outlast everything else, which is unresasonable, if nothing else because, while it may be supported by the community, when Kahle becomes unavailable to the project for one reason or the other, there's no saying what will really happen to it.
  - chongli 5y ago
    The IA has well over 100 employees, possibly over 200 at this point. With a very strong mission statement, I have to imagine they have a very good culture dedicated to Brewster’s goals. I’m sure he’ll choose a very good successor. I’m sure he’s already taken considerable steps to codify his mission into a charter. He’s a very smart guy and he’s worked too hard to allow his vision to falter when he retires. Furthermore, archivist is a full blown profession with its own professional society. I’m sure IA will always be able to hire people who are serious about preserving and cataloguing information.
    - Mezzie 5y ago
      I'm curious who it's going to be and what field his successor will come from. As a coder/developer with an MLIS + a decade of library experience, in my experience there aren't that many people who grok both the tech and the politics/people aspect around preservation, which you would need to head IA. I wouldn't be shocked if, if IA is around in a few decades, they start expanding into educational partnerships to ensure the vision continues. Or institute fellowships. Or they may just inspire more people; IA's work was one of the things that convinced me to pursue an MLIS (as a girl, I was discouraged at the time from CS). Or we'll start seeing more degree specializations that mesh the two, like HCI concentrations.
VelNZ 5y ago
Personally I would save a copy in a standard format and make it available on a domain I control. I've done that in the past for scientific publications.
- dgellow 5y ago
  That's only possible if you own the material, otherwise you may be distributing copyrighted content.
kqr 5y ago
Honestly? Go through the trouble and ask the author for a license to print the relevant parts along with the referencing material. The most egregious cases is when the author references their own web content!

notapenny 5y ago

I chuckle at something similar where books on programming languages are titled "The Definitive Guide to <Insert Programming Language>". Our industry changes, and fast. Everything is chaos.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

I think the greatest preponderance of technical books are written with a useful lifetime of at most 5 years, and frankly probably not that long.

bzzzt 5y ago
I divide technical books in two categories: - Those explaining a programming language, framework or application with a specific version. These books clearly have a lifespan related to the thing they are explaining and will often end up in second hand or wholesale shops. - Books explaining principles. It doesn't matter if they are 2 or 20 years old since the things they are explaining don't really change.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  Sure, but the greatest preponderance of programming books explain the first, also some books that seem to be explaining the second are really more tightly tied to a particular programming language or platform than they like to let on - like Clean Code with Java.
  - II2II 5y ago
    Which is almost entirely unique to programming books. Take a book on electronics, and a book discussing principles and a 20 year old book will be nearly as relevant as one published today. Take a book on physics and a 100 year old book will be be nearly as relevant as one published today. That doesn't mean the fields are unchanging. Modern electronics is definitely more sophisticated and much of classical physics has been superseded by modern physics. One definitely needs more modern treatments in order to work at the frontiers of these fields. Yet the principles are less ephemeral. On the other hand, software development is much more fad driven. The most basic principles may still apply, yet the application of those principles change (sometimes subtly and sometimes dramatically) due to a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago

aspyct 5y ago

I have a printed book on AspectJ. Pretty sure it's past its "useful lifespan". As technologies age, so do anything that talks about them.

anchpop 5y ago

This is a use case of IPFS I think. Any IPFS "website" will remain available at its original IPFS content ID as long as at least one person is seeding it, so if a book referenced one the author could seed it to guarantee that the URL will continue to work as long as they're willing to keep it up (and any interested 3rd party could do the same)

kqr 5y ago
Yeah, but a printed book well outlives an author's good intentions, too. People underestimate the lifespan of books.