Re: lynx-dev short_url option

[Klaus Weide]

On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Heather wrote:
> > > As for "another convention to get used to" ... is going to be that too.
> > > No excuse there.
> > 
> > But "..." is the "natural" way to denote that something has been omitted.
> > It is a common convention that I assume most users already know from
> > other contexts.
> 
> Potentially good point... non-English readers, please pipe in if you folk
> use something else for ellipsis / omission mark?

It is a cultural convention quite universal across (modern, at least) writing
systems using Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts.  As far as I know, which
may be not that much, and there are enough folks here to correct me if I'm
wrong about the Cyrillic bit, at least...

> It's probably another nit to pick, but the typical end user cannot tell if
> the back end gadget is a script accepting the parameters that the CGI spec
> allows, a module that accepts those same parameters, or some other means 
> that is using more than CGI would have allowed.  All they know is by speed,
> and by complexity of URL, they often feel they can tell if pages are static
> or dynamic.  I've heard them in office halls, and when they think something
> is dynamic, they don't say "asp" - they say "CGI" - 

So it seems I have been protected from exposure to this bit of
misleading terminology, by not frequenting those office halls...

Closer to "home", is <http://lynx.browser.org/> dynamic or not?
I say it seems to be, since the server never sends a "Last-Modified"
header.  Or else it may be misconfigured.

> > I hope you'll continue to excuse my nitpicking.  I do have the excuse
> > for it that it doesn't stray further from realistic things than split
> > statuslines and AI-like URL-pattern-recognition, which seems to be
> > where you are heading.
> 
> I think our play back and forth over what it should or shouldn't compress
> in a URL, is good for short_url's design, and should help create something
> that will last many revs.
> 
> So you didn't mention what you think of the idea of allowing really long URLs
> to spend two lines instead...

Another fancy idea that I don't see anyone implementing, or even
seriously thinking about implementation.  Of very limited usefulness
in my personal opinion, especially in relation to the effort needed to
do it the way I assume you mean it (I assume you expect the statusline
area to vary between occupying one and two screen lines depending on the
length of the current link's URL).  There, since you asked...

I find most of the discussions on lynx-dev about what I call 'fancy
ideas' - basically discussing wishlist items in much detail, without
much regard for the 'how?' of implementation - not very productive.
They rarely seem to lead to implementation.  When some individual does
take the initiative and implements something similar to what has been
discussed in that fashion, those high-flying ideas discussed
previously in much detail don't play much of a role - the details have
been long forgotten, or the implementation just is much more
determined by what is feasible than by what is desirable.  But I don't
want to _always_ spoil the party (believe it or not).  Maybe I'm just
wrong, maybe my characterization is quite unfair, maybe someone does
get inspired to implement something 'fancy' by these discussions more
often than I think, and maybe they aren't as fancy as I think - so do
go on, if you feel differently. :)


   Klaus