Checkbox

#1

Post by mellonaut » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 9:37 AM UTC

Checkbox
chromakode.com

Re: Checkbox

#2

Post by mellonaut » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 9:38 AM UTC

This is an explanation of the april 1st XKCD comic checkbox [0], in which you can send an receive messages in morse code via a checkbox. There are many responses and gems hidden inside. For a cheat sheet of what you can do see here: [1]

[0] https://xkcd.com/2445/ [1] https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2445:_Checkbox

Re: Checkbox

#3

Post by daly » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

Use blank for dot and tab for space.

Then your morse code is "invisible" and you can put it anywhere.

Re: Checkbox

#4

Post by eyelidlessness » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 12:58 AM UTC

Half-hearted REST/HATEOAS reply: this wouldn’t be a problem if you put it in a query parameter (or the body with an appropriate content type to account for URL length restrictions)

Re: Checkbox

#5

Post by chromakode » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #4

Half-hearted REST/HATEOAS reply: this wouldn’t be a problem if you put it in a query parameter (or the body with an appropriate content type to account for URL length restrictions)

These API URLs are completely static and side effect free. We considered using a POST body, but then would lose CDN caching, which would make a difference at xkcd's scale. We also decided that URL length restrictions would not likely matter for real world morse input.

I hadn't considered using a query parameter -- that's a really interesting idea! That seems like it'd have been a more elegant solution than the special cased padding we ended up with.

Re: Checkbox

#6

Post by eyelidlessness » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 3:29 AM UTC

chromakode wrote: post #5

eyelidlessness wrote: post #4

Half-hearted REST/HATEOAS reply: this wouldn’t be a problem if you put it in a query parameter (or the body with an appropriate content type to account for URL length restrictions)

These API URLs are completely static and side effect free. We considered using a POST body, but then would lose CDN caching, which would make a difference at xkcd's scale. We also decided that URL length restrictions would not likely matter for real world morse input. I hadn't considered using a query parameter -- that's a really interesting idea! That seems like it'd have been a more elegant solution than the specia…

Especially for static/idem potent resources where URL length isn’t a concern this is exactly the kind of thing query parameters were designed for. If you do revise it to adopt that please credit Roy Fielding :)