[boost] Re: What is it with boost and tinyurl?

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-07-21 13:40:00

Rob Stewart <stewart_at_[hidden]> writes:

> From: Walter Landry <wlandry_at_[hidden]>
>> Miro Jurisic <macdev_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>> > It seems to me that boost developers are particularly enamored with
>> > tinyurl.  While I agree that there are cases when tinyurl is a good
>> > thing, I can't but think that in many cases where it's used on boost
>> > lists it does more harm than good.
>> > 
>> > Tinyurl (and similar services) discard valuable information from the URL. I 
>> > often use information in the URL itself to judge whether the topic being 
>> > discussed is of interest to me. 
>
> They also solve real problems.
>
>> I'd like to add that, of the half-dozen free/open software lists I
>> read, boost is the only list that uses tinyurl's.  Making boost more
>> or less dependent on tinyurl seems unnecessary.  In addition, someone
>
> As has been illustrated already in this thread, the use of
> TinyURL is not unnecessary.
>
>> who is not mark may post a url like
>> 
>>   http://foo.com/~mark/new_algorithm.pdf
>> 
>> Later mark (not the original poster) moves their site to mark.com, so
>> the site moves to
>> 
>>   http://mark.com/new_algorithm.pdf
>> 
>> With tinyurl's, it is much harder or impossible to find the new page.

It looks hard or impossible to me even without tinyurls.  How do
tinyurls hurt this situation?  Are you really likely to find the new
url by probing likely new urls based on the old one?

> For this and the OP's reasons, may I suggest that all links be
> done both ways?  

Too much trouble.  I certainly wouldn't want to set that policy; it
would just discourage posting links.  

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com