Download page on ruby-lang has numeric URL

On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, mathew wrote:

> Hugh Sasse wrote:
> > Then may I suggest that the name is misleading? 
Also, on the web
> > one learns that numeric page names are generated
automatically and
> > generally can't be link to.
> 
> You have learned two falsehoods. See
> <URL:http://www.w
3.org/Provider/Style/URI>

I'll partially concede those.  However that document says:

   A lot of people don't know that servers such as Apache
give you a
  lot of control over a flexible relationship between the
URI of an
  object and where a file which represents it actually is in
a file
  system. 

So in practice they do change.  This is experiential
learning I'm
talking about, not theory. So people learn that in practice
auto-generated URLs are not constant, even though they
should be.

The rest of the doc puts a complete spanner in the works of
any naming
suggestions (basically: ontologies and semantics are subject
to change,
making it difficult to find things).  I don't know if the
Dewey Decimal
system can handle concepts like download pages.

> 
> mathew
> 
> 
        Hugh

Hugh Sasse wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, mathew wrote:
>   
>> You have learned two falsehoods. See
>> <URL:http://www.w
3.org/Provider/Style/URI>
>>     
>
> I'll partially concede those.  However that document
says:
>
>    A lot of people don't know that servers such as
Apache give you a
>   lot of control over a flexible relationship between
the URI of an
>   object and where a file which represents it actually
is in a file
>   system. 
>
> So in practice they do change.

Yes, in practice all URLs change eventually.

The point of the article is (a) creation-date-based numbers
in URLs are 
a very sensible way to allocate URLs, and (b) once you've
allocated a 
URL, it's best not to change it gratuitously.

Follow those two rules, and the Ruby download page is
explained.

If you've learned that URLs with date numbers in are
temporary, then 
you've simply learned something false. Countless CMSs and
blog systems 
use permalink URLs as per the W3 article.


mathew