Re:My url isn't your url
by jrochkind1 on Wednesday May 11, 2016 @08:18AM
(#11674552)
Eh, I think your comment only confirms the main point of the article, that it's become massively confusing.
I was around around then, and definitely recall the conventional wisdom being "don't call them URLs anymore, call them URIs, that's the new standard." At any rate, rfc3686 claimed to be a new standard for _syntax_ -- according to the passage you quote, whether it's a "URL" or a non-URL URI is not a matter of syntax at all. The syntax spec is now called "URI". That rfc claims.
Except somehow the result has been just massive confusion over what standard should be used how for syntax of URLs/URIs, with the WHATWG just stirring the pot further (obligatory reference to xkcd there's too many standards let's create another). I don't know that there's anything wrong or to blame in the written text of rfc3986, but something in the social practice of rfc standards as manifested in URL/URI-related things, has resulted in massive confusion and a situation described in OP where there is effectively no formal standard for URLs/URIs consistently used across software.
I was around around then, and definitely recall the conventional wisdom being "don't call them URLs anymore, call them URIs, that's the new standard." At any rate, rfc3686 claimed to be a new standard for _syntax_ -- according to the passage you quote, whether it's a "URL" or a non-URL URI is not a matter of syntax at all. The syntax spec is now called "URI". That rfc claims.
Except somehow the result has been just massive confusion over what standard should be used how for syntax of URLs/URIs, with the WHATWG just stirring the pot further (obligatory reference to xkcd there's too many standards let's create another). I don't know that there's anything wrong or to blame in the written text of rfc3986, but something in the social practice of rfc standards as manifested in URL/URI-related things, has resulted in massive confusion and a situation described in OP where there is effectively no formal standard for URLs/URIs consistently used across software.