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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/