4 ms·

I believe this is a rather naive posts on the subject of URLs and honestly wish it never made it to HN front-page, but seeing as we are here... lets go through

I believe this is a rather naive posts on the subject of URLs and honestly wish it never made it to HN front-page, but seeing as we are here... lets go through the points made and how they conflict with each other... "You can remember them" Well, no. You might remember a few. But you are only going to remember so much. This has a very limited benefit. "You can tell someone" Yeah, but no. I barely tell people a domain. I'll just send them a link on the spot. Again, very limited benefit. "They look nicer." Ok, but not a strong use-case. In general usage the display name of a link does not need to reflect the URL of the link. "They remove the middle-man" ... "encourage people to copy and paste" ... I'm just gonna say this is plain false as a generalization. I've worked on URL sharing in publishing for almost 2 decades (yikes). It's built on a little bit of truth. On mobile devices all have built in share functions to text and spread based on various apps installed. Again, very limited impact and effect. "They’re enough." This is my favorite! He talks about unique combinations but this goes against his original point of making them memorable. He should of at least talked about potential dictionary level word combinations... sigh

cryptonector 4y ago
URIs are not supposed to be part of the UI/UX, but they unavoidably have leaked and will continue to leak into it. Therefore, making those URIs most likely to leak into the UI/UX be user-friendly is very good advice.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  > URIs are not supposed to be part of the UI/UX Why not? > but they unavoidably have leaked and will continue to leak into it It seems like the opposite has happened. URIs were the default navigation UX, but we are slowly pushing them away.
  - cryptonector 4y ago
    > Why not? Because if you have enough of them for internal purposes then they can't have meaning to users. > It seems like the opposite has happened. URIs were the default navigation UX, but we are slowly pushing them away. URIs were the default entry point for navigation, and they still are. That's one way in which they leak, but these are intentional so maybe best not called "leaks". There's also the URIs that leak in other ways, like in the browser status bar, and so on.
- donohoe 4y ago
  Well, thats the thing, most of the advice has a bit of truth to it. However it is very limited benefit to the extent that the larger argument/conclusion (shorter URLs are better) is wrong. It ignores many valid points raised here, like URLs that include structure (be it date-based, or taxonomy, or hierarchy) provide immense value in many cases.
nickm12 4y ago
Yes to all of that. Plus the url of the post itself (https://sive.rs/su https://sive.rs/su) takes this to a perverse extreme. I agree that URLs should be humane, but typeable from memory is not the primary objective. Having people beable to read the URL and understand something about where it will go is. Also, unless you know your domain will only ever host one type of content, then having no hierarchy will lock you in. https://sive.rs/blog/on-short-urls https://sive.rs/blog/on-short-urls is plenty short, but so much more valuable to any humans using the url. If you don't agree that URLs need to be humane, then none of it matters and sure, use a UUID for every page.

cryptonector 4y ago

URIs are not supposed to be part of the UI/UX, but they unavoidably have leaked and will continue to leak into it. Therefore, making those URIs most likely to leak into the UI/UX be user-friendly is very good advice.

xboxnolifes 4y ago
> URIs are not supposed to be part of the UI/UX Why not? > but they unavoidably have leaked and will continue to leak into it It seems like the opposite has happened. URIs were the default navigation UX, but we are slowly pushing them away.
- cryptonector 4y ago
  > Why not? Because if you have enough of them for internal purposes then they can't have meaning to users. > It seems like the opposite has happened. URIs were the default navigation UX, but we are slowly pushing them away. URIs were the default entry point for navigation, and they still are. That's one way in which they leak, but these are intentional so maybe best not called "leaks". There's also the URIs that leak in other ways, like in the browser status bar, and so on.
donohoe 4y ago
Well, thats the thing, most of the advice has a bit of truth to it. However it is very limited benefit to the extent that the larger argument/conclusion (shorter URLs are better) is wrong. It ignores many valid points raised here, like URLs that include structure (be it date-based, or taxonomy, or hierarchy) provide immense value in many cases.

nickm12 4y ago

Yes to all of that. Plus the url of the post itself (https://sive.rs/su https://sive.rs/su) takes this to a perverse extreme. I agree that URLs should be humane, but typeable from memory is not the primary objective. Having people beable to read the URL and understand something about where it will go is. Also, unless you know your domain will only ever host one type of content, then having no hierarchy will lock you in. https://sive.rs/blog/on-short-urls https://sive.rs/blog/on-short-urls is plenty short, but so much more valuable to any humans using the url. If you don't agree that URLs need to be humane, then none of it matters and sure, use a UUID for every page.