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Proposal to drop double slashes from URL syntax

Louis Brauer louis at brauer.family

Tue Feb 9 16:25:58 GMT 2021

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URIs are already standardized: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986

specifically in Section 3.3 you'll find the description about //.

I don't think changing gemini URIs to a non-standard format would bring any advantage to the project.

- Louis

Am Di, 9. Feb 2021, um 17:12, schrieb Daniel Nagy:

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

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

the http URL

syntax. I see the following advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:

- Less typing

- Less wasted screenspace

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

Disadvantages:

- Newcomers might see familiarities with http in the double

slashed syntax and

recognize, that the following token is a hostname, which will

be contacted.

There is a chance that, without the slashes, newcomers might

expect

something else than a hostname after the color, although I

personally think

that chance is low.

- Implementations would need to adapt to this and some URL

parsers in their

respective languages might not support the parsing of such

syntax.

- Automatic URL detectors, like for example a terminal emulators

where you can

click on a URL and it openes, might have trouble detecting

this URL form and

therefore not recognize links. Those terminal emulators would

need adaption.

Of course, the double slashed syntax could still be supported, but

the more

compact format could be encouraged. Any feedback or suggestions

would greatly be

welcomed.

Regards,

Daniel

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