YADIS as an abstraction layer

[Lukas Leander Rosenstock]

Martin Atkins wrote:

> * How do you handle URLs that don't end with a trailing slash? Where 
> is the auto-discovery document for <http://joe.mysite.com/aboutme.html>?
> * How do you handle URLs with query components? Sadly, some sites 
> present horrible identity URLs like 
> <http://www.mysite.com/identity.php?user=fred>.
> * What about sites powered by software that is simply incapable of 
> presenting content at that URL? I know at least one content management 
> system that takes over the entire URLspace and uses URLs like 
> <http://www.mysite.com/section/section/section/>, reflecting the 
> structure of the site and always including a trailing slash. Not all 
> sites are delivered from static files on disk.
>
> In short, "magic" filenames open a can of worms since URLs were never 
> intended to work like that. Even IE's "magic" favicon.ico is 
> overridable by a LINK element, presumably because the designers of 
> that feature realised that it is not appropriate nor possible to 
> dictate a particular URL structure for all sites.

I agree with what you said, still I believe it is a good idea. As a 
fallback solution it would still be possible to try again with the URL 
itself and then following a Link-Tag in the (X)HTML, then everyone could 
use it, however I think it would be used very rarely (it reduces 
performance and causes traffic).

With the URLs, why not enforce some simpler usernames? I don't think 
someone really has to use things like 
https://server:4223/users/id/script.cgi?user=name as their personal 
logon name, most identity URLs today look simple as 
"brad.livejournal.com" and it is good that way. If I have the 
"visionary" look I see for example just entering my friends' unified 
usernames (-> URLs) into my calendar and the software sets up 
appointment sharing etc., I (if I were a non-tech) would like to see 
simple and, yes, unified usernames (maybe only hostnames) that can be 
converted into a URL. A simple webspace from a typical mainstream 
webhost company with domain catchall can easily create many simple 
identites like firstname.familyname.tld or name.company.tld so I would 
look from this perspective and not some strange uncommon systems.