An idea for getting rid of the hashbang problem
michaelcgorman.net
An idea for getting rid of the hashbang problem
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Re: An idea for getting rid of the hashbang problem
#2I've been playing around with this idea for a while, and given this week's context, I figured I might as well throw it out there. My main questions for HN are: (a) is this a good idea, (b) do you see any big pitfalls I'm overlooking, and (c) how might we get this to happen?
Re: An idea for getting rid of the hashbang problem
#3I've been playing around with this idea for a while, and given this week's context, I figured I might as well throw it out there. My main questions for HN are: (a) is this a good idea, (b) do you see any big pitfalls I'm overlooking, and (c) how might we get this to happen?
Can you compare this against the HTML5 pushState API?
Re: An idea for getting rid of the hashbang problem
#4I've been playing around with this idea for a while, and given this week's context, I figured I might as well throw it out there. My main questions for HN are: (a) is this a good idea, (b) do you see any big pitfalls I'm overlooking, and (c) how might we get this to happen?
Can you compare this against the HTML5 pushState API?
All pushState does, AFAIK, is add things to your browsing history; it alone doesn't affect the content you receive. It does, however, make it possible (for recent browsers with JS enabled) to use the back button to navigate through AJAX-ed sites.
Re: An idea for getting rid of the hashbang problem
#5Basically you want to be able to return a diff.
I half remember that this is possible over http for updating a resource (e.g., you looked at example.com/a-page an hour ago and now you want to look at it again; your browser can just download the bits that have changed). But I don't remember the details. Maybe it's part of WebDAV?
Then you only need to hint to the browser that a certain link might be diffable against the current page (or another page that the browser might have cached). That means only one new attribute, one new http header, and no new url structure required.
Adding new mandatory structure to urls icks me out for some reason. It doesn't feel very web-like.
Edit: I think that something like your idea would be helpful, but I don't think your idea would be the best way of doing it.
Re: An idea for getting rid of the hashbang problem
#6Basically you want to be able to return a diff. I half remember that this is possible over http for updating a resource (e.g., you looked at example.com/a-page an hour ago and now you want to look at it again; your browser can just download the bits that have changed). But I don't remember the details. Maybe it's part of WebDAV? Then you only need to hint to the browser that a certain link might be diffable against t…
Another idea could be to include the separator character as part of the attribute (e.g. zone="profile:" or zonechar=":"). I'm not a huge fan of imposing mandatory URL structure, either, but I chose the colon since it is already valid and it's relatively pretty. (/profile:michaelcgorman looks nicer than /profile.php?id=michaelcgorman, at least to me)
Edit: I think I remember seeing something diff-like when working on a custom CalDAV feed a couple of years ago. Though that may have been CalDAV-specific, like a date-range.
Re: An idea for getting rid of the hashbang problem
#7Basically you want to be able to return a diff. I half remember that this is possible over http for updating a resource (e.g., you looked at example.com/a-page an hour ago and now you want to look at it again; your browser can just download the bits that have changed). But I don't remember the details. Maybe it's part of WebDAV? Then you only need to hint to the browser that a certain link might be diffable against t…
SDCH can save bandwidth, but I think the hashbangs are trying to avoid any page load at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Dictionary_Compression_O...
Re: An idea for getting rid of the hashbang problem
#8Basically you want to be able to return a diff. I half remember that this is possible over http for updating a resource (e.g., you looked at example.com/a-page an hour ago and now you want to look at it again; your browser can just download the bits that have changed). But I don't remember the details. Maybe it's part of WebDAV? Then you only need to hint to the browser that a certain link might be diffable against t…
SDCH can save bandwidth, but I think the hashbangs are trying to avoid any page load at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Dictionary_Compression_O...
SDCH looks to be going after a similar problem, but it would cache the templates between browsing sessions rather than just among consecutive pageviews. I'm not sure how well it would work for AJAX-y sites which rely on maintaining Javascript state, though, but potentially you could still use, e.g., localStorage for that purpose.