>> I persuaded BBC Radio to offer a modest prize for the
>> best suggestion for pronouncing
>> Aitch Tee Tee Pee Colon Slash Double-U Double-U Double-U Dot
>> on the radio or over the phone. "Huttipwobbly?" Who knows?
>>
[snip]
>
>
>Quite. It's becoming more blindingly obvious by the day, as the web expands and
>becomes more complex, that the system and structure of URLs is impossibly
>complicated and, above all, unmemorable, and, in the long run, cannot bear the
>burden of use being imposed on it. Shouldn't we be ditching it and starting
>again before it gets too late - or at least relegating it to the background,
>like machine code, where it needn't bother most of us? Even the URL you refer
>us to seriously offends in that respect. Perhaps there should be a booby prize
>for the most absurdly complicated URL - but I'm afraid there would be too many
>contenders.
The only thing about trying to come up with an naming scheme that can point
to millions of different objects is that it's always going to be difficult
to remember one particular name, either because
a) it's too long
or
b) it's too short (try remembering IP addresses rather than domain names!)
Fortunately, when it comes to URLs, God invented bookmarks for us :-)
As to the best way to pronounce "http://", I call it "", not least of all
because Netscape doesn't require that you type it in. It guesses that bit,
as I think most people would. Many adverts for web sites (the real cultural
barometer of these things?) are now casually dropping the http://. But
woe betide anyone who gets casual about their gopher addresses in the same
way!
Regards,
Myles
---------------------------------------------------------------
Myles Chippendale - [log in to unmask]
Internet Project Officer
Health Care Libraries Unit - http://wwwlib.jr2.ox.ac.uk/
Tel: 01865 226617 Fax: 01865 226619
---------------------------------------------------------------
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|