Given the goal of a clean URI space, I'm seeking your input on a file naming convention for Cocoon's soon-to-be-contributed How-Tos, Tutorials, Examples, etc. documents. My assumption is that getting this right on the first go-around will help to eliminate a number of potential problems related to internal site linking.
I started investigating this issue by reading Tim Berner-Lee's article on the subject (See http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html). Tim makes some interesting recommendations for "good" and "bad" HTTP URIs. Here's a summary of what I find relevant to Cocoon: BAD: subject/topic (e.g. install, markup, action) REASON: too subject to varying interpretations, likely to change in meaning over time, need to reuse in the future BAD: extension (e.g. .html, .xml, .pl) REASON: delivery mechanisms will change BAD: author's name REASON: authorship may change over time, multiple authors GOOD: dates (e.g. 020430) REASON: The date when the URI is issued will not change. Helps to separate requests which use a new system from those which use an old system. Following these guidelines, we might use some variant of: www.apache.org/cocoon/faqs/02050308 www.apache.org/cocoon/howtos/02060315 Questions 1. Is this overkill for the needs of projects like Cocoon, given the short life of documents tied to software release cycle? Is it simply a matter of usability vs. longevity concerns? Tim states that it is "the duty of a Webmaster to allocate URIs which [he/she] will be able to stand by in 2 years, in 20 years, in 200 years." Do you agree with that? Jakob Nielson's article on a similar subject (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990321.html) projects the remaining useful lifetime of any domain to be a mere ten years. Do we really need to be concerned beyond the lifetime of a particular software release, particularly with time-sensitive docs like FAQs, How-Tos, etc.? 2. I assume we need to continue the use of extensions for static site versions deployed in environments which lack clever Apache- or Cocoon-based mapping mechanisms. 3. Numbers in URIs remain cryptic and uninviting to me. Perhaps I'm hopelessly corrupt from years of bad habits, but I *like* topics in filenames, for example: www.apache.org/cocoon/faqs/config_jboss.html www.apache.org/cocoon/howtos/develop_source.html However, this approach won't work so well with docs having similar topics. And my dream is that we will have *100s* of docs to manage. So my current thinking is to assume that a request like: www.apache.org/cocoon/howtos/02050312.html will map to a file named 02050312.xml with a file naming convention based on <two-digit year><two-digit month><two-digit day><two-digit hour>.xml stored in src/documentation/xdocs/howtos The above assumes these contributions will be included in documentation that appears on Cocoon's web site. Do you agree? Comments? Diana --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
