On Jun 13, 2007, at 11:27 PM, Oliver Baltzer wrote:

> I think it should. I don't see why not.

Flat out simplicity.  The AliasPage just has a find_by_url that  
returns the other page.  And since a page can have child pages, if I  
didn't just re-route the request I'd either have to have an alias for  
each subchild (ugly) or do some complicated trickery involving  
creating Page objects on the fly that don't actually exist in the  
database (which I don't like, but can do if it becomes necessary).

I'll admit the AliasPage extension is a dumb hack.  But it works, and  
I think it's simplicity is an example of how the simple framework of  
Radiant is powerful.  I have no objection to altering the extension  
to do these things so that the resulting page gives the correct URL,  
if there is a compelling reason for it.  But you haven't given me one.

>> And I think that redirect is broken for any
>> site that has multiple ways to access the same page.
>
> There is no reason for accessing the _same_ page via multiple ways.
> That's just bad design. Compared to a Unix file system, there are
> directory entries and there is data. Two directory entries may point
> to the same data, but still are distinct directory entires. Asking
> either of them for their path will return two different paths.

Hard Links.  Symbolic Links.  Used all the time in Unix to have the  
same file in multiple places.  And, AFAIK, you can't ask "where is  
this file" once you've opened it.  The best you can get is "what path  
did I open this file with".  Ext2 inodes don't even know what their  
parent is.  Directory entries point back to their parents with the  
".." link, but files have no concept of where they are stored and it  
makes links significantly easier.

My use of it is to have the same CSS file(s) across multiple sites.   
But I could see an extension that publishes an address book with URLs  
like /addresses/<group>/<person>.  If a person is in multiple groups,  
should I have to update multiple pages when their contact information  
changes?  Or shouldn't I be allowed to have a single page with their  
information and a "groups" part the describes all the groups they are  
in?  What if we added authorization so that not everyone can see  
every group?  How do we handle your redirect now?

>> And it sucks from a performance point of view as we have to do  
>> find_by_url twice
>> for the page twice before displaying it.
>
> Only if it actually needs to be redirected. Apache does not seem to
> have a problem to stat a directory twice for the same reason.
> Redirects should be fairly infrequent if the web-author is paying
> attention.

find_by_url is one of the biggest time issues in Radiant, as far as I  
can tell.  Avoiding it would be useful.  And I don't see what  
redirecting to the "one true URL" would help.  A site-wide setting  
for "add a trailing slash" or "remove a trailing slash" (possibly  
with don't add slashes if there's an extension on the URL), it would  
be faster and solve the original problem without adding additional  
cost or complication.

Doing what you suggest adds a limitation to Radiant and doesn't  
provide a significant bonus.

That's my issue.

~~ Brian
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