[Radiance-dev] RadHub beta

[Ian Tester]

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 23:43:01 +0100 (BST)
"Axel Jacobs" <a.jacobs at londonmet.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> > Um, that IS a "full" URL. URL's can be almost anything. They don't
> > necessarily have to point to files and you shouldn't assume they do.
> > Why does your web site have such a silly requirement on URL's anyway?
> 
> I beg to differ: a URL is the location of a FILE on the Internet. The
> reason why we don't normally have to worry about the last part, i.e. the
> actual file name, is that 
> page, which is usually 'index.html', 'index.shtml', or 'index.php', if no
> page is explicitly given.

Well I beg to differ as well. The URL spec written by Tim Berners-Lee back
in 1994 says this:

   This section describes the syntax for "Uniform Resource Locators"
   (URLs): that is, basically physical addresses of objects which are
   retrievable using protocols already deployed on the net.

Objects, not files. Specifically about HTTP URLs:

   The HTTP protocol specifies that the path is handled transparently
   by those who handle URLs, except for the servers which de-reference
   them.   The path is passed by the client to the server with any
   request, but is not otherwise understood by the client.

Here's the full spec:
http://www.w3.org/Addressing/URL/url-spec.txt

It's important that someone creating a website, especially with dynamic
content, understands how HTTP works. And you almost had it there when you
said "the web server is configured to serve a default page". Yes, it's the
web server that decides what to do with the URL! A lot of URL's map to
files on the web server, but a lot don't.

How does e.g http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Locator
map to a file? All of Wikipedia is in a huge database. It's the
server-side software that decides what to do with each URL, not the client.

Sorry to hear that you're pulling the plug on RadHub so soon. I hope my
technical nit-picking wasn't a major part of that decision. I just have to
point out errors where I see them. I didn't think it was that big a deal.

bye
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