Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I agree with this article to the extent that we should choose our URIs carefully and semantically. However, it is very likely that your web facing application, and the semantics of your resources will change over time. What if I wanted to deprecate and eventually remove my 'Providor' or 'Style' resource? Maybe I decided to create a 'blogs' and an 'articles' resource. That would change the URI from http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html to http://www.w3.org/blogs/articles/URI.html (I know that my choice of new resources aren't the most interesting but you get the point). Of course, we would still support the old URI via a 301 redirect to the new one, or continue to serve up the page from the old URI and use a rel canonical meta tag. I'd advocate for 301ing to the new URI and letting the past be the past. We shouldn't be bound to these decisions for the rest of our lives. Unless you're sure that the focus of your web app will never change, or you plan to build your new resource URIs around old resource URIs that were chosen at a time when your new resources weren't being considered (which would lead to far worse URIs), then I'd plan for your URIs to change.


Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: