

BATTLE: //url.tld VS http://url.tld - adamclayman

Vote for your favorite below. Or upvote if you prefer sharing urls without "http:", and downvote if you prefer keeping "http:" in the picture.<p>==============<p>Can we agree to drop the use of "http://www.google.com", and let browsers and email clients auto-generate urls from "//google.com" instead?<p>Which do you favor for use in print, email and advertising?<p><i>Option A (http://)</i><p>------------------<p>http://google.com<p>http://facebook.com<p>http://mint.com<p>http://news.ycombinator.com<p>http://voice.google.com<p><i>Option B (//)</i><p>-------------<p>//google.com<p>//facebook.com<p>//mint.com<p>//news.ycombinator.com<p>//voice.google.com<p><i>Option C ()</i><p>-----------<p>google.com<p>facebook.com<p>mint.com<p>news.ycombinator.com<p>voice.google.com<p>Let's see where the community stands. What barriers exist to shortening the syntax for http and https resources to "//url.tld"?<p>If Hacker News supports the shift, Web 2.0 might just might support the change.<p>One proposed measure of spectacular success: If Google Mail staff reading this thread devote development time to prefilling the "//google.com" link destination to "http://google.com" when users highlight and link text that reads "//google.com", and promote this as a flexibility feature to its 350 million active users.<p>(If Google promotes "//link.com" as a secure simplicity feature, we'll save ourselves googols of keystrokes, and enable enhanced textual clarity and reading speed for urls printed in-line in emails and on paper.)
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delwin
The question is irrelevant, there is already a standard. Browsers use
<http://>, dead-tree material uses nothing, and no one uses //, because that's
just weird.

Typing in <http://> is never necessary, so we're already saving as many
keystrokes as possible.

~~~
adamtheclayman
Delwin, on the keystroke front, adding support for processing the text
"//google.com" as a likely link does not impact users like me who type
"google.com" into their URL bar.

I'm not proposing that we lengthen "hipmunk.com" into "//hipmunk.com". Just
that we shorten "<http://hipmunk.com>, where and when it appears, to
"//hipmunk.com", or enable support for such shortening in as many major
consumer web applications we can collectively reach, through a top-ranked
Hacker News story.

//url is already supported by every major browser.

I don't know how to format or title an HN post to attract attention. I'm
starting to regret titling this "BATTLE: //url.tld" instead of something more
like, "It's 2012. Why do we still need to write <http://> to tell a web
service we've written a link, when // will do?"

Should this not or never reach the front page, if you or anyone you know has
an idea of how to get the short //url proposal somewhere it gets considered
for a moment by the webdev collective and YC participants (and aspirants), I'd
be greatly appreciative.

//news.ycombinator.com (<\- press me, I'm a link)

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adamclayman
If you're reading a dense paragraph of text,and you come across a google.com
link, your eye does not immediately recognize it as a link. But if you're
reading a paragraph and you see a //google.com link... well now, that's a
link!

Everything that's new and not normalized with a smiling, attractive face
beside it gets written up as weird, until it gets normalized and becomes
commonplace.

I'm asking HN: Can we collectively make this "//link.com" syntax not weird?

~~~
adamclayman
And should we?

Do you see merit to supporting all three //news.ycombinator.com,
news.ycombinator.com and <http://news.ycombinator.com> on your site as likely
hyperlinks?

Consider all the variations of capitalization in the coding community,
typified by support for CamelCase, and its variants.

I'm suggesting a mixed-mode url format that distinguishes a url from
surrounding text, but without the overhead of <http://>.

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adamclayman
On Prezi, only <http://> links are translated into links. Screen real estate
is precious in a powerpoint presentation. Why can't "//link" get translated
into a hyperlink?

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andyzweb
none of these. I would rather see http:domain.tld or just domain.tld

~~~
adamtheclayman
Hmm, that's interesting.

