Broken Links
Before events took this bad turn, the contract represented by a link was simple: “Here’s a string, send it off to a server and the server will figure out what it identifies and send you back a representation.” Now it’s along the lines of: “Here’s a string, save the hashbang, send the rest to the server, and rely on being able to run the code the server sends you to use the hashbang to generate the representation.”
Do I need to explain why this is less robust and flexible?
Mark Jaquith in the comments explains why Twitter is doing this and how hopefully it will stop being “necessary.”
4 Comments RSS · Twitter
I know all about why, but every time I see it used, I can't help but thinking that it's as if you wrote, instead of your home postal address, the address of someone else along with a secret password to tell that guy so that he'd let you know the real address.
[...] Webb says that Twitter will stop using hashbang URLs (via David Heinemeier Hansson). Great news, although to avoid breaking links they’ll have to [...]
