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Proposal to drop double slashes from URL syntax

Sean Conner sean at conman.org

Tue Feb 9 22:22:29 GMT 2021

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It was thus said that the Great Daniel Nagy once stated:

Hello,

I want to propose to drop the double slashes from the gemini URL syntax.

The reason for this is that they dont serve any semantic value and while

the project is still young, I think it could still be changed. So instead

of

gemini://example.com

we would have:

gemini:example.com

All right. Let's assume we do this. Let's start with an existing link:

gemini://gemini.conman.org/test/torture/0001

and work our way through the first few entries with the new style. Thefirst is a full link in the Gemini document:

gemini:gemini.conman.org/test/torture/0002

That works. Our client can get the second page. The next is a schemelesslink, wihch *is* valid in text/gemini documents (but not as the request). This will now look like:

gemini.conman.org/test/torture/0003

Here we hit our first potential snag---do we have a hostname or not? Infact, here are the links from the next few tests using your proposal:

/test/torture/0005 007 /test/../test/torture/0009

And to further mess with things, I could add a test 0051 with a relativelink to:

gemini.conman.org

Do I mean the top level page of my sever? Or the page

/test/torture/gemini.conman.org

Because remember, you can have relative links in text/gemini documents, andthe hypothetical test 0051 has a path of

/test/torture/0051

(and don't think I wouldn't do it).

In fact, Sir Tim Berners-Lee apologized[0] for introducing them in the

http URL syntax. I see the following advantages and disadvantages:

Not mentioned is the alternative he would have done.

Advantages:

- Less typing

- Less wasted screenspace

- Less transfered bytes and less stored bytes on disk and memory

We're running over TLS. There's already quite a bit of overhead, as Idocumented here:

https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2020/001958.html

Disadvantages:

- Breaks relative linking in documents.

-spc

[0]: https://www.sitepoint.com/sir-tim-berners-lee-http-slashes/