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You are quite right -- this is very much a human user-centric approach
to URLs. Really, then, my example reflects one use case for one type of
actor.
So, going back to Roger's original question (best practices for URI
construction), it is likely true that there is no one set of best
practices. The best practices you want will depend on the application
you are building: that is, on actors who will be using your URIs, and
the use cases that are relevant.
Does that make sense?
[Aside: don't you like the way Roger can post seemingly simple
questions that somehow always lead to incredibly interesting
discussions!]
Greg Hunt wrote:
> Isn't that a specific case of a URL referring to a human-readable web
> page in a site addressed to people? When the resource does not provide
> for navigation (media files or database files do not usually point at
> each other, web pages usually do point at each other) truncating the URL
> is an attempt to get to a web page (in essentially a parallel
> information structure) that then points to the thing that you want. The
> fall-back to web pages is not part of the general resource model and
> nothing stops anyone from creating a site that contains no html if they
> only want to to provide resources other than web pages.
> People do all kinds of bizarre things with web browsers and a
> human-readable web site architecture should accommodate that, but web
> site architecture and resource identification are different things.
> Greg
>
> Ian Graham wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:
>>
>>> * Ian Graham wrote:
>>>
>>>> One observation/result was that a substantial fraction of users
>>>> expect truncating a URL at 'natural' places to return meaningful
>>>> results. This, for example, is one of the intuitive 'search'
>>>> algorithms people use when a link doesn't work. As an example, if
>>>>
>>>> http://somewhere.org/US/IL/
>>>>
>>>> is a valid URL, then truncating this to
>>>>
>>>> http://somewhere.org/US/
>>>>
>>>> should both work and provide meaningful information.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> People who do this commit web architecture crime, the TAG commands
>>> "People making use of URIs SHOULD NOT attempt to infer properties
>>> of the referenced resource".
>>
>>
>>
>> Well, since likely < 0.002% of Web users have read the spec, and since
>> that recommendation is counter to any intuitive understanding of a
>> URL, that particular recommendation is .... err... useless.
>>
>> People do what make sense to them. And since URLs have structure, some
>> people (and likely some software) naturally look for meaning in it.
>>
>> I mean how often have you gone to a URL, got a 404, and then chopped
>> bits off until you found something relevant/useful? And how often
>> were you pissed when that didn't work?
>>
>> Designing for what people actually do is, imo, a characteristic of
>> good design, even if this contradicts a spec.
>>
>> Ian
>
>
>
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--
Ian Graham
H: 416.769.2422 / W: 416.513.5656 / E: <ian . graham AT utoronto . ca>
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