[pydotorg-www] (PEP )?redirector service

[Paul Boddie]

On Monday 11 February 2013 20:30:10 M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> On 11.02.2013 16:18, anatoly techtonik wrote:
> > Hi.
> >
> > Right now to go to pep from an URL, you have to type exactly:
> > http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008
> >
> > What is needed to create redirector service on peps.python.org that sends
> > all the following URLs to the page above?
> > http://peps.python.org/8
> > http://peps.python.org/pep8
> > http://peps.python.org/pep-08
> > http://peps.python.org/0008
> > http://peps.python.org/peps-0008

A host entry on some level of DNS server and some Apache directives?

> I think it's better to link directly to the correct URL. If you want
> shorter URLs, there are plenty URL shorteners out there. Many browsers
> also allow customizing search, so you could add a PEP search to your
> browser.

There are always concerns about general link shorteners:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2010-September/587768.html

Some go beyond the practicalities, too:

http://www.selenic.com/pipermail/mercurial/2010-March/030444.html

As for browsers and custom searches, there are also search engines that 
recognise things like PEPs:

https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html

Amusingly, "!pep 8" sends me to the following, outdated location:

http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-8/

I seem to remember some discussion about shortening python.org URLs, but I 
can't find anything about it at the moment. It might be useful to have a more 
memorable way of referring to PEPs, but allowing all sorts of alternatives is 
just inviting people to rely on potentially bizarre spellings that one day 
may no longer work. See above for an example. ;-)

So, I think that peps.python.org is potentially a good idea and might be 
provided fairly easily with a rewrite rule, but too much magic is just not 
worth having: it's only when pages become completely undiscoverable 
that "guess the URL" becomes worthwhile, and then time would arguably be 
better spent improving navigation on the site concerned.

Paul

P.S. To take an example, typing dell.com/linux takes you to Dell's 
current "secret" page about Linux that you just know will be moved around, 
obscured in favour of "Dell recommends Microsoft Windows 8" "adverts", 
hidden, removed, lost, and so on, but that is only a useful shortcut because 
such sites make searching and navigation so awkward and awful otherwise.