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Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)

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Re: Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)

#21

Post by cxr »

glacials wrote: post #18

If you run a statically generated website, I recommend append-only generation, where you keep your `dist/` (or whatever web root) stateful between builds. This guarantees you don't break URIs even if the static generator changes or the source content is removed. You can even make an orphan branch and check out that branch into `dist/` as a worktree to keep it under version control.

Even for people who don't practice this, if you're publishing a static site, you can make sure you're generating output with rel=canonical links and at any given point, you should be able to run a tool (entirely separate from your chosen static site generator) over the output to extract those URLs and verify at time t2 that the set of links that existed at t1 (where t1 < t2) is a subset of those at t2.

Re: Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)

#22

Post by toyg »

beached_whale wrote: post #19
torh wrote: post #13

Not that long ago I clicked on a link that Microsoft provided somewhere in Windows -- could have been the event log, I don't remember. I do remember it was for a specific support article, but it ended up at a generic landing page for something. I am not talking about a link from Windows 95, it must have been Windows 10. But regardless, it is all gone. Then again, it probably wasn't a cool URL to begin with. It's amaz…

Microsoft has a terrible habit of doing that. KB's used to have a predicable URL, they may again, but they keep changing them. Or any of their docs really. It's terrible as those URL's end up in other documents to be killed. This is not really an enterprise friendly way of supporting customers.

Yeah, I always wondered how one of the wealthiest companies on earth could be so poor in linking to their own documentation.

Then I realized that they have a galaxy of consultants and experts that effectively make a living by keeping on top of all issues and fixing them for a fee. So there is little incentive for them to actually be user-friendly: as long as they are "partner friendly" with timely material, that's good enough.

They are not alone in this, btw - pretty much all major platform providers do this, one way or the other.

Re: Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)

#23

Post by krupkinmaxim »

bensyverson wrote: post #8
firasd wrote: post #7

What this page doesn't mention is 301 or 302 redirects. SEO has made "old URLs staying live" more of a widespread concern than it was at the time. And WordPress etc ship with inbuilt redirects upon slug rename So to a large extent this has been mitigated and not using the suggestion here, which is to create a permanent URL ontology upfront That said eventually neglect, removal, reorgs (or simply websites going offlin…

Yes but how often in practice does the same information stay accessible via 30x redirects after one reorganization, let alone two or three?

[flagged]

Re: Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)

#24

Post by nicbou »

This is something I work really hard to maintain on my websites. I often refer to government websites as sources for my guides, and these URLs break at an alarming pace. It's as if the German government is moving reference pages and services around just for giggles. It creates a significant maintenance burden on my end.

When I worked for an ecommerce website, we spent weeks making sure every URL worked after a migration.

Nowadays it feels a little quaint because most of my 404s are from LLMs hallucinating URLs that never existed, sometimes for topics I never covered. I wonder what nonsense it attributes to me.

Re: Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)

#26

Post by Panino »

torh wrote: post #13

Not that long ago I clicked on a link that Microsoft provided somewhere in Windows -- could have been the event log, I don't remember. I do remember it was for a specific support article, but it ended up at a generic landing page for something. I am not talking about a link from Windows 95, it must have been Windows 10. But regardless, it is all gone. Then again, it probably wasn't a cool URL to begin with. It's amaz…

Mailing list archive software is a constant rug pull: today you link to a post about something relevant, and next month the link goes to a different message about a different subject.

Re: Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)

#27

Post by sunaookami »

WalterGR wrote: post #4
mooreds wrote: post #2

Great article, lots and lots of past discussion: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=cool+uris

This post is related to (inspired by?): "The original URL for this prediction will no longer be available in 11 years (2011)" (longbets.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49228458 186 points | 12 hours ago | 91 comments

Always like it when Hacker News "follows" a topic over days with different related links. Kinda like a bonus for reading HN daily :)

Re: Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)

#28

Post by phatskat »

torh wrote: post #13

Not that long ago I clicked on a link that Microsoft provided somewhere in Windows -- could have been the event log, I don't remember. I do remember it was for a specific support article, but it ended up at a generic landing page for something. I am not talking about a link from Windows 95, it must have been Windows 10. But regardless, it is all gone. Then again, it probably wasn't a cool URL to begin with. It's amaz…

I bought an air conditioner last year, some wal-mart “smart” AC that was affordable (we had to get three for the new house we moved in to so budget was a big concern) and it has a QR code for the companion app. I finally got around to getting the app this summer and lo and behold, it’s a dead link. Yay.

Re: Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)

#30

Post by Swizec »

I've been trying to keep all URLs backwards compatible forever on swizec.com and it's surprisingly hard. I _think_ anything from 2010 onward should be good. The domain started in 2005.

Unfortunately I'll never know for sure.

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