WP-A: A New URL Shortener

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 15 March 2016 22:46:44 Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:

> Gene Heskett wrote:
> > On Tuesday 15 March 2016 19:55:52 Chris Angelico wrote:
> >> On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 10:38 AM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn
> >>
> >> > And as for second-level domains, consider for example “t.c”
> >> > instead of “twitter.com” as part of the short URI.
> >>
> >> That'll work only for the ones that you code in specifically, and
> >> that's only shortening your URL by 8 characters. A typical URL
> >> needing shortening is over 80 characters - maybe several hundred.
> >> You need to cut that down to a manageable length. That
> >> fundamentally cannot be reversed without readding information.
> >
> > And I submit that putting someone in charge of the drives
> > organization, and the database on that drive that the url has to dig
> > thru, can make a huge difference in the length of the resultant url.
>
> Maybe it’s just the late/early hour, but you’ve just lost me.
> Please elaborate.
>
Elaborate? Unless the database is expected to handle the whole human 
race, what 9 billion of us?, a subdir name longer than 8 chars is wasted 
space.  And we regularly see them much longer that that, with a friggin 
regex in the middle, using 6 to 15 subdirs if what I read is broken 
down. Thats assinine IMO, and if because they cannot do it right for a 
platform other than windows, it doesn't work for me, then I don't care 
if it links to the g-code (RS-274-D) that would make my machines carve 
me a key to Fort Knox.  If these ID10T's want me to see whatever the 
heck it is they're are peddling to make me last all night, they WILL fix 
it.  Heck, at 81, and diabetic for almost 30 years, nothing they can 
sell me will fix it anyway. :(
> >> >>> And with the exception of Twitter-ish sites that place a limit
> >> >>> on message length, there really is *no need* for shorter URIs
> >> >>> nowadays.  (HTTP) clients and servers are capable of processing
> >> >>> really long ones [1]; electronic communications media and
> >> >>> related software, too [2].  And data storage space as well as
> >> >>> data transmission has become exceptionally inexpensive.  A few
> >> >>> less bytes there do not count.
> >
> > They may not count for that much in terms of what the user pays for
> > bandwidth, but see below.  And some users are probably still paying
> > for their internet access by the minute in some locales.
>
> So they should loathe more the overhead measured in *kibibytes* and
> delay measured in *seconds* caused by additional HTTP requests due to
> redirection from “short URLs” than the few more *bytes* in longer,
> original URLs, yes?
>
> --
> PointedEars
>
> Twitter: @PointedEars2
> Please do not cc me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail.


Cheers, Gene Heskett
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