| |
In lugnet.admin.suggestions, Todd Lehman wrote:
> In lugnet.admin.suggestions, Wayne Gramlich wrote:
> > The relevant RFC is RFC1738 in the appendix. Alas, most people find
> > the <URL:url> syntax to be ugly and simplify it to simply <url>. This
> > is one of those situations where the RFC says X, people do Y, and the
> > programmers choose to bow to the defacto standard Y.
> > [...]
> > Unfortunately, it did not anticipate the defacto standard of how to
> > encode URL's into E-mail to not follow the official standard in the
> > RFC1738 appendix.
>
> What an strange and unfortunate outcome.
Actually, back in 1994, which is when RFC1738 was written,
there was all sorts of discussion about URN's (Universal
Resource Names), URI's (Univesal Resource Identifiers),
and URL's (Universal Resource Locators). The concept
is that a URN could be either a URL or a URI. Hence,
the syntax was eventually going to be <URL:url> or <URI:uri>.
When the URI stuff failed to materialize, people rightly decided
to switch from <URL:url> to <url> syntax. This was consistent
with the prior convention of enclosing E-mail addresses in
angle brackets. So, there was actually some thought that
went into the whole process.
I will agree that it is unfortunate that it conflicts with the FTX
design decision though.
[snip URL's to <url> notation]
> > I think it may be time to do a little FTX redesign, since the mail
> > readers and news readers that already implement angle bracketed URL's
> > are extremely unlikely to change.
>
> I think you're right. Eudora isn't known for strict adherence to SMTP/NNTP
> standards, but Mozilla is a totally different story. If this is
> confusing a modern-day Mozilla, that's a Bad Thing, and I agree with you
> about the unlikelihood the behavior changing.
>
> When the FTX syntax was worked out back in 1999, we were looking at
> originally it as one way to format FAQ entries to be compatible with
> NNTP and SMTP messages (which is how the <url label> format came about).
>
> If it were revised/redesigned to be more compatible with the emerging
> popular behavior of <url>, we could still implement a link label via some
> syntactical incarnation before or after the <url>. Some options:
>
> <url> (label)
> <url> [label]
> <url> {label}
>
> Those are assuming that {} and [] are dispensed with as italics and boldface and
> replaced by // and **, respectively.
Of the ones that you list, <url> (label) seems most natural to me.
> Other options?
>
> How do other simple text extensions/formatters write a link label? Anybody seen
> it done in an elegant way?
-Wayne
|
|
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: link labels
|
| (...) What an strange and unfortunate outcome. (...) Thanks for the links. (...) I think you're right. Eudora isn't known for strict adherence to SMTP/NNTP standards, but Mozilla is a totally different story. If this is confusing a modern-day (...) (21 years ago, 17-Jun-03, to lugnet.admin.suggestions, lugnet.admin.nntp)
|
5 Messages in This Thread:
 
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
