Eureka! (Re: Comments on Python Redesign)

[Skip Montanaro]

    Dave> I don't know of any problem with tinyurls - *any* server can
    Dave> provide a "bad" redirect; as with any URL whether or not you
    Dave> follow it depends on the context and on how much you trust the
    Dave> sender.

The only other reasons I could think of to object to tiny urls are:

* Perhaps the tinyurl folks are not trustworthy (are they keeping track of
  your browsing habits and selling that info?).  That seems unlikely, since
  they don't appear to be storing cookies in my browser.

* The tinyurl website can become a bottleneck, preventing people from
  getting where they want to go.  The tinyurl.com website seems to be fairly
  unreachable for me at the moment, though this is the first time I've seen
  this, and it appears to be a problem more with Northwestern's connection
  to the net than tinyurl.com's.

* There's no guarantee tiny urls will remain unique or even available for
  long periods of time.  Their current practice of using four lower-case
  letters suggests they have space for about 450,000 unique URLs before
  extending to a fifth letter.

Skip