Posted on 10/14/2009 8:08:48 PM PDT by Steelfish
Sir Tim Berners-Lee Admits Forward Slashes On World Wide Web ‘Were A Mistake’
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British scientist who created the World Wide Web, has admitted his decision to include two forward slashes in internet addresses was a mistake.
Andrew Hough 14 Oct 2009
Sir Tim said if he had his time over again he would not include the two forward slashes in web browsers. Photo: GEOFF PUGH The // at the front of a web address was pointless and unnecessary, Sir Tim admitted at a recent talk in America.
Sir Tim, now director of the World Wide Web Consortium - which oversees the web’s continued development - that if he had his time over again he would leave them out of addresses.
“Really, if you think about it, it doesn’t need the //. I could have designed it not to have the //," he said last week at the symposium in Washington DC on the future of technology.
“Boy, now people on the radio are calling it ‘backslash backslash’. People are having to use that finger so much.
“Look at all the paper and trees, he said, that could have been saved if people had not had to write or type out those slashes on paper over the years — not to mention the human labour and time spent typing those two keystrokes countless millions of times in browser address boxes." Interviewed by a reporter for the New York Times, Sir Tim added: “There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Explaining that when he started devising the network almost three decades ago, he said he failed to predict how much effect what he was producing would have on people now.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
We refer to it as “Whack Whack”
don’t even mention it. Start at www.
The nation is going down the drain, thr Islamists are demanding full Shari-ah Law and this is what their papers are covering?
Yeah, who types out the entire URL anymore? kthnxbai
Jeez. Ya can’t see EVERYTHING!
LOL, I wonder if he saw the Internet turning into what it is?
You always think of ways you could have done it better, after the fact.
eh..most browsers fill it in for you if you want (along with the http:), I think it does a nice job of separating the what from the where.
A bigger problem was the use of “www.” He picked the ONLY letter of the alphabet that takes three syllables to pronunce. If a German came up with it, it might have been the Vorld Vide Veb. How much faster to say “vvv.”
One is a loon who claims to have invented the internet and has a Nobel Prize.
The other is the guy who invented the World Wide Web.
http:)
Beat me by 19 seconds, good job.
Most of time I neglect the www, too.
Isn’t that a right parenthesis?
They are, technically, back “virgules”, but ‘ah, well’ ...
yep. Thats outdated too. This browser doesn;t need to have www punched in.
Sssh. We have cleverly concealed much steganographic information in the forward slashes. No one must know. Don’t even get me started about what is contained in the “www”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.