Hi Diana, I am for subject/topics rather than dates. Dates are good for something that will produced once and never edited again (like news articles). I think the nature of cocoon-docs would require a good percentage of the documents to be edited and released several times in their life. If content needs to be edited after a release and then re-released, what date do you use? The latest date? This screws up search engines and peoples bookmarks. Proper naming of the folders and pages (using captialization where appripriate and/or underscores) would be much more attractive and understandable, though more work needs to go into the naming process.
best, -Rob Diana Shannon wrote: > 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 subj¡º‘—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] > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
