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Web inventor: Sorry about the //
Tim Berners-Lee pretty much created the World Wide Web as we know it. And looking back, he says that while the "http" part of a URL makes sense, there's no particularly good reason for typing the double-slashes.
While Berners-Lee laments that many trees and work-hours could have been saved if he had left out the unnecessary // marks, I'm guessing that nobody was really all that hurt by their presence. But I guess it does show that in hindsight, pretty much anything could be done better.
via Slashdot
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsAJ VivianoOct 16th 2009 1:55PM
Wait, I thought Al Gore invented the internet? Who is this guy? :)
Rick BungleOct 16th 2009 3:17PM
I was thinking the same thing. There's an error in this story. Al Gore created the internet.
OmarOct 16th 2009 7:49PM
The Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same thing!
The Internet is the physical structure (hardware), while the WWW is mostly the software layer.
MysteriusOct 16th 2009 8:01PM
While I was thinking about this, I wondered whether "http" itself could have been shortened to "htp". Thoughts?
"http://" vs "htp:"
CamOct 17th 2009 8:03AM
http=hyper text transfer protocol
I'm not sure it could be shortened.
MysteriusOct 17th 2009 8:03AM
@Cam: Yes, I know that "HTTP" stands for "Hypertext Transfer Protocol".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol
Since "hypertext" is one word, though, it doesn't need to be represented by two letters.
And on the technical side, we have "FTP" for "File Transfer Protocol", so 3 letter abbreviations don't seem to pose a problem.
I was just pointing out that if we were to dump "//" somehow, we might also consider dumping "http" in favor of "htp".
dplockheartOct 17th 2009 10:16AM
3.2. Authority Component
Many URI schemes include a top hierarchical element for a naming
authority, such that the namespace defined by the remainder of the
URI is governed by that authority. This authority component is
typically defined by an Internet-based server or a scheme-specific
registry of naming authorities.
authority = server | reg_name
The authority component is preceded by a double slash "//" and is
terminated by the next slash "/", question-mark "?", or by the end of
the URI. Within the authority component, the characters ";", ":",
"@", "?", and "/" are reserved.
- Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax ("http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2396")
Granted no longer applied in todays web standards Im sure but it dose have a bit of sense to it originally.
From what I gather "//" starts the authority component and "/" ends it. Sort of like how "../" represents root directory and "/" represents current directory.
Brad JensenOct 18th 2009 2:12PM
"Sort of like how "../" represents root directory and "/" represents current directory."
/ = Root (not current directory)
../ = Parent Directory of the Current Directory (not root)
at least with X-HTML links.
biaachmonkieOct 19th 2009 8:27PM
Better still would have been reversing the dns syntax.
instead of "www.downloadsquad.com/2009/10/16/web-inventor-sorry-about-the/"
you would have "com.downloadsquad.www/2009/10/16/web-inventor-sorry-about-the/"
The way it is now is wierd in that you go from most specific to least then back to more specific. Plus think of all the feature it would enable like intellisense you start typing "com.downloadsquad." and via dns the browser it could look up all the subdomains, it would make discovery so much easier.
Stupid lack of forethought.