Talk:File Extensions

From Well Designed Urls WiKi

This discussion has been moved to the mailing list:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/welldesignedurls/msearch?query=file+extensions

SHOULD HAVE file extensions for Content Types for most other files (i.e. GIF, JPG, PNG, PDF, ZIP, EXE, etc.)

what about content negotiation for: - fallback, png then gif, or - language, english then another ? -- Paul Arzul 11:47, 30 November 2006

Thanks for the great question Paul. Honestly, I'll admit a bit to using this wiki as a work in progress since it's traffic is currently rather low (I'm curious how you found it?) So I am putting down my current thoughts and plan to do one of several things, depending on the order in which I get to them:

Do enough research on the subject until I can be sure to have a well informed opinion on the subject
Blog a "brainstorming" entry at blog.welldesignedurls.org to solicit feedback on the topic.
Create a forum thread at a planned future forum at forums.welldesignedurls.org to brainstorm the topic.

Ideally I'll be able to integrate all three and then come to a consensus among all the great minds willing to discuss the topic so as to make a strong recommendation with some authority. Of course if I can't get consensus then the recommendation will probably be: "Here are the options."

That said, in reviewing the list archives for www-tag and REST-discuss I find a lot of discussion of content negotiation. OTOH, when I browse the web or when I see the implementors write about developing web sites (vs. the standards participants) I never see any mention of content negotiation, and I'm focusing on User-Centered URL Design here. I've been developing web sites on and off since 1995 and just recently was the first time I had ever even heard of content negotiation.

>> - fallback, png then gif, or

In addition, I've come of the belief that the file extension is a strong indicator to an enduser of the type of content the URL retrieves especially for graphics files, and as such I'm currently noodling the value of content negotiation in that content. Maybe in the context of systems that are expected to be fully automated it would be okay. I have some thoughs about how to get the best of both worlds but they are not well formed or researched enough yet so I don't want to mention them and display my ignorance.

I also came across this recently- some W3 folks saying users shouldn't see urls at all. Drew Perttula 19:32, 30 November 2006 (CST)
- I'm really glad you posted that. I've been trying to find that for a while now as I saw it a while back (as an aside, notice the non-"Cool" URL http://www.w3j.com/3/s1.interview.html that previously links to Tim's interview. Now that page is hawking a product!!!) Anyway, the posting you referenced was over seven years old, and based on the reading of more recent archives and also some of the very recent posts, I'm thinking they have evolved in that mindset. BTW, Dan Connolly is definitely aware of this site and has added a link to my blog post as he linked it from the TAG open issues list re:URIGoodPractice-40. I'm going to ask for comment on the www-TAG list to revisit that issue. Mike Schinkel 22:41, 30 November 2006 (CST)
But back to the topic, I think gif/png/jpg is almost as bad as html/php/asp in the url. I should be able to sweep my whole site and convert the gifs to pngs (or to whatever I like in 5 years) and not change the urls. Leaving the .gif on a file that's now a png is obviously poor too. I support the idea of making image urls distinguishable from text documents, but I prefer content-type headers to url extensions. Sticking an /image/ component in the url would handle the casual human debugging case, although it's not a reasonable standard for computers to follow. Drew Perttula 19:32, 30 November 2006 (CST)
- I've decided to take this discussion to the mailing list as I think it will encourage greater involvement and will also provide a much better intereface for threaded discussion than the Wiki talk page. I'll send out an email to the list on the topic hopefully within an hour. Mike Schinkel 22:41, 30 November 2006 (CST)

>> - language, english then another

I've read in several list archives that it is actually better to have a unique URL for language because someone might actually want to see the French version even though their language is set to English. When I write about supporting multiple-languages, which I plan to early on in the blog, I'll definitely dig those up for reference.

That said, I would LOVE your input. One of my goals for this initiative is to be as open-minded as possible so i can objectively evaluate all input. I want to come up with the best recommendations for best practices and not just ones that support my sometimes fragile ego. :-)

Mike Schinkel 15:32, 30 November 2006 (CST)

P.S. You can "sign" your post with four tildes ~~~~. And can I impose on you just a bit more to add a link to your blog or an otherwise tiny bit of info about yourself at Paul Arzul? Thanks in advance.

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Talk:File Extensions

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