[Sigia-l] URL design - mixing apples and oranges and tomatoes

[Ziya Oz]

"PeterV" wrote:
> Simple, static, no. I *was* referring to sites that don't need to keep
> session - that doesn't mean they can't be dynamic (but I guess it's all
> semantics).

By dynamic I mean a 'page' that doesn't physically exist but is created in
real-time from variable components by app/web servers, all triggered from a
web client requesting a URL. So (unless you want to serve the same page over
and over again :-) even for a moderately large site, you have to have some
efficient scheme of differentiating one such dynamic page from another. Thus
your URL will have to have some sort of unique name/ID, even without a
session ID.

>> Otherwise, dynamically-generated sites need to store session data and/or
>> other variables to be used to re-create a bookmarked page.
> 
> Only sites that keep sessions need to do that.

Please see above.

> And only for users that don't have cookies turned on, so in URL design it's
> only a small subset of all cases.

Unless you're in a position to *dictate* cookie usage -- and you rarely are
-- you have to accommodate unique IDs in your URLs for session and/or unique
page referral.

Incidentally, cookies are not without problems: they can be turned off, get
deleted or corrupted; the user may switch the hard disk, reformat it, use a
different browser or a computer; indeed, the same page may be accessed by a
different, non-PC client; finally, there's a limit to how much stuff you can
stash in a cookie.

So unless you're a dealing with a small subset of cases where you can
mandate cookies, any serious web app will have to consider non-cookie usage
and prepare to deal with URL IDs of one sort or another. That is, back to
square one.
 
>> domain.com/42346DDR6577823TL
> 
> Really don't like it. Not readable or hackable.

Why does it have to be 'readable'? Dynamically generated pages really don't
have to have *any* file path at all for you to traverse, beyond the domain.

> Agreed, 99% of user will never hack a URL, or even look at it, but if you're
> going to design them I think you may as well do it nicely.

Well, the above URL is bookmarkable, can contain session and/or other data,
gets you to a precise page and it's by far the shortest you can design.

I'm not sure why I'd have to expose my file/directory structure in the URL
for you to 'hack', especially if my pages are dynamically generated and
don't reside in directories or are defined by them. I thought the navigation
bars were designed for, well, navigation :-)

Best,

Ziya