4 ms·

I can't stand the "blog post as conversation" format. It's fine if you're quoting a conversation for one or two paragraphs, but for something this long you shou

by ebbv 14y ago

I can't stand the "blog post as conversation" format. It's fine if you're quoting a conversation for one or two paragraphs, but for something this long you should do me (the reader) the courtesy of speaking directly to me. Also this is giving way too much credit for the creation of the URL. The format of the URL is not some miracle, genius insight. It is a natural result of network computing, and similar descriptors of how to find a file on a remote system had existed previously for ages.

matt_yoho 14y ago
This is an example of a Socratic Dialog[1], and relies on metaphor. It's in that way a piece of art useful as a teaching tool, but as such it trades some precision for the end effect. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_dialogue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_dialogue
- ebbv 14y ago
  This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. I think something would have to be done with a bit more art and skill before I would consider it Socratic dialogue. This is just a clumsy blog post that is annoying to read, IMHO.
  - phillmv 14y ago
    >This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. Well, obviously you didn't get it. > but for something this long you should do me (the reader) the courtesy of speaking directly to me. Your comment is also full of pointless vitriol. I think it's one of the most succinct and well done explanations of an abstract academese concept loads of people quote but few people seem to understand. I refer to this blog post often.
    - ebbv 14y ago
      You sound upset. Chill out, buddy.
      - phillmv 14y ago
        Oh, me? I'm perfectly calm. I didn't want to sound too condescending.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    I don't know anything about Socrates but I sometimes find that internalising an idiot who doesn't know anything and then trying to explain my ideas to them (sometimes whilst walking round in circles audibly talking to myself) is a useful thought process.
    - ebbv 14y ago
      Sure, that's a great technique. But IMHO, don't write down the conversation as it occurs in your head. Spend the time filtering it into a more readable article.
  - B-Con 14y ago
    > This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. I would not overlook the possibility that they were just excited to formally reference something called "Socratic dialogue". It seems we like finding formal names for things on HN.
    - philwelch 14y ago
      If only there was a formal name for that behavior.
  - jsdalton 14y ago
    > This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. The blog post is from 2004 -- about nine years ago -- a time when there really wasn't much information about REST out there aside from Roy Fielding's dissertation. I recall reading this essay a few years later during my own what-the-heck-is-this-REST-thing-all-about phase and finding it relatively helpful. If he'd just published this blog post today your criticism would have a lot more merit.
kragen 14y ago
It seems natural in retrospect, but it actually took a surprisingly long time to invent. The URL didn't exist until 1990; people had been putting files on FTP sites since 1973 or so, 27 years at that point, and there wasn't even a standard piece of software which, given "wuarchive.wustl.edu:/foo/bar/baz.txt", would give you the contents of baz.txt. (ncftp supported that by 1994, IIRC, but no vendor shipped ncftp as standard.) Obviously it wasn't that people couldn't figure out how to do that. It's that nobody understood that it was an important thing to be able to do. It seems really obvious in retrospect, but it wasn't. Today, there still are a surprising number of people who create network-accessible persistent objects without making them URL-addressable. Apparently it's still not obvious to everyone that it's an important thing to be able to do. Rohit Khare's article, "Who Killed Gopher?", helps to make the history a little clearer: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rohit/IEEE-L7-http-gopher.html http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rohit/IEEE-L7-http-gopher.html
- ebbv 14y ago
  rcp came out with 4.2BSD in 1983. rcp somemachine:/some/folders/somefile.txt Is remarkably similar to: http://somemachine/some/folders/somefile.txt http://somemachine/some/folders/somefile.txt Don't get me wrong. The Web is one of the most important developments in the history of computing, or even of mankind. But like I said, the original article makes the URL out to be some unique, genius invention that came out of nowhere. When in reality it evolved very naturally out of existing network computing practices. Here's the clue that the article is wrong; when URLs came on the scene everybody who was using the internet at that time understood them intuitively. That's because they were a natural evolution of what was already there. Of course, that's usually the case with just about anything people say is revolutionary and came out of nowhere. If you look at the actual context that the thing came from, there's a completely logical progression. It only seems like it came out of nowhere to people who weren't there.

by ebbv 14y ago

matt_yoho 14y ago

This is an example of a Socratic Dialog[1], and relies on metaphor. It's in that way a piece of art useful as a teaching tool, but as such it trades some precision for the end effect. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_dialogue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_dialogue

ebbv 14y ago
This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. I think something would have to be done with a bit more art and skill before I would consider it Socratic dialogue. This is just a clumsy blog post that is annoying to read, IMHO.
- phillmv 14y ago
  >This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. Well, obviously you didn't get it. > but for something this long you should do me (the reader) the courtesy of speaking directly to me. Your comment is also full of pointless vitriol. I think it's one of the most succinct and well done explanations of an abstract academese concept loads of people quote but few people seem to understand. I refer to this blog post often.
  - ebbv 14y ago
    You sound upset. Chill out, buddy.
    - phillmv 14y ago
      Oh, me? I'm perfectly calm. I didn't want to sound too condescending.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I don't know anything about Socrates but I sometimes find that internalising an idiot who doesn't know anything and then trying to explain my ideas to them (sometimes whilst walking round in circles audibly talking to myself) is a useful thought process.
  - ebbv 14y ago
    Sure, that's a great technique. But IMHO, don't write down the conversation as it occurs in your head. Spend the time filtering it into a more readable article.
- B-Con 14y ago
  > This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. I would not overlook the possibility that they were just excited to formally reference something called "Socratic dialogue". It seems we like finding formal names for things on HN.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    If only there was a formal name for that behavior.
- jsdalton 14y ago
  > This is condescending, and relies on the assumption that I don't know anything about anything and just fell off the turnip truck last week. The blog post is from 2004 -- about nine years ago -- a time when there really wasn't much information about REST out there aside from Roy Fielding's dissertation. I recall reading this essay a few years later during my own what-the-heck-is-this-REST-thing-all-about phase and finding it relatively helpful. If he'd just published this blog post today your criticism would have a lot more merit.

kragen 14y ago

It seems natural in retrospect, but it actually took a surprisingly long time to invent. The URL didn't exist until 1990; people had been putting files on FTP sites since 1973 or so, 27 years at that point, and there wasn't even a standard piece of software which, given "wuarchive.wustl.edu:/foo/bar/baz.txt", would give you the contents of baz.txt. (ncftp supported that by 1994, IIRC, but no vendor shipped ncftp as standard.) Obviously it wasn't that people couldn't figure out how to do that. It's that nobody understood that it was an important thing to be able to do. It seems really obvious in retrospect, but it wasn't. Today, there still are a surprising number of people who create network-accessible persistent objects without making them URL-addressable. Apparently it's still not obvious to everyone that it's an important thing to be able to do. Rohit Khare's article, "Who Killed Gopher?", helps to make the history a little clearer: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rohit/IEEE-L7-http-gopher.html http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rohit/IEEE-L7-http-gopher.html

ebbv 14y ago
rcp came out with 4.2BSD in 1983. rcp somemachine:/some/folders/somefile.txt Is remarkably similar to: http://somemachine/some/folders/somefile.txt http://somemachine/some/folders/somefile.txt Don't get me wrong. The Web is one of the most important developments in the history of computing, or even of mankind. But like I said, the original article makes the URL out to be some unique, genius invention that came out of nowhere. When in reality it evolved very naturally out of existing network computing practices. Here's the clue that the article is wrong; when URLs came on the scene everybody who was using the internet at that time understood them intuitively. That's because they were a natural evolution of what was already there. Of course, that's usually the case with just about anything people say is revolutionary and came out of nowhere. If you look at the actual context that the thing came from, there's a completely logical progression. It only seems like it came out of nowhere to people who weren't there.