Comments on: Conversational and short URLs on Rails http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/ The Web Practitioner's Blog Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:33:00 +0000 hourly 1 By: Raviv http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-41867 Raviv Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:00:00 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-41867 Hi Jason, Great post. Very useful. One question: how did you design your links and navigation such that people could drill-down to get to an event? As in, on a page listing all of the Chicago events, what did the link_to code look like for getting them to the Chicago events on Design? Would it merge the parameters each time? thanks, Raviv Hi Jason,

Great post. Very useful. One question: how did you design your links and navigation such that people could drill-down to get to an event? As in, on a page listing all of the Chicago events, what did the link_to code look like for getting them to the Chicago events on Design? Would it merge the parameters each time?

thanks,
Raviv

]]> By: Christopher Scott Hernandez http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-40343 Christopher Scott Hernandez Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:42:00 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-40343 Yeah, go with dashes...heard it a long time ago on a forum ;) Yeah, go with dashes…heard it a long time ago on a forum ;)

]]> By: Adrian M. http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-20834 Adrian M. Tue, 25 May 2010 01:59:58 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-20834 Jason, Interesting post. This problem was already noticed by Tim Berners-Lee about 15 years ago with his work on "Matrix URIs". Unfortunately his ideas didn't make it to common web browsers. That said, I've also worked on variants of this idea. I'm wondering how do you generate these conversational URLs. Regards Jason,

Interesting post. This problem was already noticed by Tim Berners-Lee about 15 years ago with his work on “Matrix URIs”. Unfortunately his ideas didn’t make it to common web browsers.

That said, I’ve also worked on variants of this idea. I’m wondering how do you generate these conversational URLs.

Regards

]]> By: Jonathan Julian http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-19131 Jonathan Julian Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:47:40 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-19131 Edmund is absolutely correct. I've written a spec that exposes the error in decode: http://gist.github.com/331808 Edmund is absolutely correct. I’ve written a spec that exposes the error in decode: http://gist.github.com/331808

]]> By: Edmund Salvacion http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18864 Edmund Salvacion Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:52:21 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18864 Great article. In base58.rb file there is a bit of an error in the decode: decoded += multi * alphabet.index(n[i,i+1]) should be: decoded += multi * alphabet.index(n[i,1]) The former would only work up to 2 characters. Great article.

In base58.rb file there is a bit of an error in the decode:

decoded += multi * alphabet.index(n[i,i+1])

should be:

decoded += multi * alphabet.index(n[i,1])

The former would only work up to 2 characters.

]]> By: Gareth http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18200 Gareth Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:20:21 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18200 It would require a similar amount of code in PHP, the difference here is that Ruby's block syntax allows someone *else* to write the repetitive code which loops through the array and splits it out. It means that someone reading your code has a much better chance of seeing *what* you want to do, without having to understand the implementation detail of how you are doing it. Now I think of it, Rails provides a similar in_groups_of(x) method, which offers better handling of cases where your array doesn't split exactly into groups of x - probably worth investigating. It would require a similar amount of code in PHP, the difference here is that Ruby’s block syntax allows someone *else* to write the repetitive code which loops through the array and splits it out. It means that someone reading your code has a much better chance of seeing *what* you want to do, without having to understand the implementation detail of how you are doing it.

Now I think of it, Rails provides a similar in_groups_of(x) method, which offers better handling of cases where your array doesn’t split exactly into groups of x – probably worth investigating.

]]> By: Jason Lynes http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18199 Jason Lynes Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:11:18 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18199 life is good when that for syntax is nasty. :) how much code would that require in php? but this is tons cleaner, and i haven't seen that technique. i'll throw this in now... life is good when that for syntax is nasty. :) how much code would that require in php?

but this is tons cleaner, and i haven’t seen that technique. i’ll throw this in now…

]]> By: Gareth http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18198 Gareth Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:02:43 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18198 Instead of that nasty looking for..in syntax, you can use the much more Ruby-ish each_slice, which will yield you successive pairs from an Enumerable: >> (1..10).each_slice(2) { |a,b| puts [a,b].inspect } [1, 2] [3, 4] [5, 6] [7, 8] [9, 10] Instead of that nasty looking for..in syntax, you can use the much more Ruby-ish each_slice, which will yield you successive pairs from an Enumerable:

>> (1..10).each_slice(2) { |a,b| puts [a,b].inspect }
[1, 2]
[3, 4]
[5, 6]
[7, 8]
[9, 10]

]]> By: Merrick Christensen http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18197 Merrick Christensen Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:00:00 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18197 This is gold! I love these URL's thanks for the post. It's good to see some cool developers out of Salt Lake too. :) This is gold! I love these URL’s thanks for the post. It’s good to see some cool developers out of Salt Lake too. :)

]]> By: Jason Lynes http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18196 Jason Lynes Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:48:35 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18196 Thanks, Russel, that's looking promising.. Thanks, Russel, that’s looking promising..

]]> By: Robert van Hoesel http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18195 Robert van Hoesel Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:31:59 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18195 Next to these urls not being twitter friendly, google does not like them either. When Google has to dig in 4 or more subdirectories it thinks the page is less important or less worthy. Next to these urls not being twitter friendly, google does not like them either.
When Google has to dig in 4 or more subdirectories it thinks the page is less important or less worthy.

]]> By: Russell Allen http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18192 Russell Allen Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:12:28 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18192 This sounds like a really cool idea - on the SEO implications, it might be worth taking a look at the new canonical link meta tag, which allows multiple pages to pool their SEO ranking against a single URL. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html This sounds like a really cool idea – on the SEO implications, it might be worth taking a look at the new canonical link meta tag, which allows multiple pages to pool their SEO ranking against a single URL.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

]]> By: Jason Lynes http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18188 Jason Lynes Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:37:09 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18188 Henrik, thanks for that link! I didn't know about that. I'll have to grab that plugin. And great point, Paul. Yes, they go to the same page. I'm no SEO expert, so I'm not sure about the search implications of that. A friend also mentioned that my underscores weren't as Google-friendly as dashes. Any SEO gurus care to chime in? Henrik, thanks for that link! I didn’t know about that. I’ll have to grab that plugin.

And great point, Paul. Yes, they go to the same page. I’m no SEO expert, so I’m not sure about the search implications of that. A friend also mentioned that my underscores weren’t as Google-friendly as dashes. Any SEO gurus care to chime in?

]]> By: Paul Campbell http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18187 Paul Campbell Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:19:03 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18187 This is absolutely brilliant. Definitely the way forward. One question (forgive me for not being a ruby programmer...) Does this mean you can have these two URLs pointing to the same page: conferences/on/programming/in/new_york conferences/in/new_york/on/programming How do we address search engines crawling, what I guess it would see as, duplicate content? This is absolutely brilliant. Definitely the way forward. One question (forgive me for not being a ruby programmer…)

Does this mean you can have these two URLs pointing to the same page:

conferences/on/programming/in/new_york

conferences/in/new_york/on/programming

How do we address search engines crawling, what I guess it would see as, duplicate content?

]]> By: Henrik N http://thinkvitamin.com/code/conversational-and-short-urls-on-rails/#comment-18183 Henrik N Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:49:27 +0000 http://carsonified.com/?p=4289#comment-18183 Rather than add a /h/ prefix, you could use a plugin like http://github.com/veilleperso/request_routing and add :conditions => { :domain => MY_SHORT_DOMAIN } to those routes. Saves a few characters. Rather than add a /h/ prefix, you could use a plugin like http://github.com/veilleperso/request_routing and add :conditions => { :domain => MY_SHORT_DOMAIN } to those routes. Saves a few characters.

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