The concept of hooking onto a URL, for years, is a bad thing. It prohibits the URL owners from changing it. It's not 90's. You have search engines now to get to content. It's almost same as bookmarking an IP address, and complaining that the change has frustrated you, or someone scribbled the IP address on the margin of a letter.
I usually bookmark a link only to come back to a few days/weeks later. I don't expect a bookmark to work after years. I let the URL owners to have freedom to change it.
A thing that changes or goes away, feels natural. An URL that didn't change in 20 years, actually freaks me out, like a non-degradable plastic.
This just means you’ve accepted URLs as something different than they were made to be. If the resource no longer exists - fine, c’est la vie. Otherwise, there should never be any need for it to change. It should never have encoded any implementation details anyway.
That's mostly about the social contract: if you publish something on the Internet, should it be made easier for the readers/users to access, or for you to move the thing around for whatever silly reason?
I let the URL owners to have freedom to change it.
You know, you used the term "URL owners" twice, and I think I have a fundamental problem with this concept. The publisher ought not to own the URL, it really ought to belong to the consumers.
A thing that changes or goes away, feels natural.
Yeah, but the URL is not a thing of nature, it's manufactured, and its original intent was that it was manufactured to last.
An URL that didn't change in 20 years, actually freaks me out, like a non-degradable plastic.
A URL that doesn't change shares zero problems that non-biodegradable plastic has. In fact, the constantly changing URLs do have a couple of problems similar.
Also, you can try a different metaphor, like e.g. a rock or a mountain. It's a freaky thing, innit? Always there, unchanging... until people with excavators show up and turn a mountain into a quarry (which happened to several mountains, actually). Take it, nature!
I agree. I also think that URLs will always be ephemeral because you can't control the TLD. If the TLD operator increases the price or introduces new conditions that are disagreeable you have no way of handling redirection.
If something is important to the site operator they will make their content discoverable.
If something is important to the reader then they should archive/snapshot it.
In either case, stable URIs are non-essential but in the latter case you are protecting yourself from domain name changes too.
That's like saying the Dewey decimal system is creepy because it doesn't change. That's the point! A reference should be where you left it. Why must it change?
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The concept of hooking onto a URL, for years, is a bad thing. It prohibits the URL owners from changing it. It's not 90's. You have search engines now to get to content. It's almost same as bookmarking an IP address, and complaining that the change has frustrated you, or someone scribbled the IP address on the margin of a letter.
I usually bookmark a link only to come back to a few days/weeks later. I don't expect a bookmark to work after years. I let the URL owners to have freedom to change it.
A thing that changes or goes away, feels natural. An URL that didn't change in 20 years, actually freaks me out, like a non-degradable plastic.
This just means you’ve accepted URLs as something different than they were made to be. If the resource no longer exists - fine, c’est la vie. Otherwise, there should never be any need for it to change. It should never have encoded any implementation details anyway.
That's mostly about the social contract: if you publish something on the Internet, should it be made easier for the readers/users to access, or for you to move the thing around for whatever silly reason?
You know, you used the term "URL owners" twice, and I think I have a fundamental problem with this concept. The publisher ought not to own the URL, it really ought to belong to the consumers.
Yeah, but the URL is not a thing of nature, it's manufactured, and its original intent was that it was manufactured to last.
A URL that doesn't change shares zero problems that non-biodegradable plastic has. In fact, the constantly changing URLs do have a couple of problems similar.
Also, you can try a different metaphor, like e.g. a rock or a mountain. It's a freaky thing, innit? Always there, unchanging... until people with excavators show up and turn a mountain into a quarry (which happened to several mountains, actually). Take it, nature!
I agree. I also think that URLs will always be ephemeral because you can't control the TLD. If the TLD operator increases the price or introduces new conditions that are disagreeable you have no way of handling redirection.
If something is important to the site operator they will make their content discoverable. If something is important to the reader then they should archive/snapshot it.
In either case, stable URIs are non-essential but in the latter case you are protecting yourself from domain name changes too.
That's like saying the Dewey decimal system is creepy because it doesn't change. That's the point! A reference should be where you left it. Why must it change?