Berners-Lee apologizes for forward slashes
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
The forward slashes at the beginning of internet addresses have long annoyed net users and now the man behind them has apologised for using them.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, has confessed that the // in a web address were actually “unnecessary”…
“There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” he said…
His light-hearted apology even had a green angle as he accepted that having to add // to every address had wasted time, printing and paper.
And electrons?
That and the @ in email addresses. If it has to be such a common symbol why couldn’t they put it on the lower keyboard. I really hate typing email addresses in as hitting the @ is such an out of the way reach.
Mr. Fusion
October 14, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Remap your keyboard…
Jägermeister
October 14, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I’ll send him a bill for the ink.
Jägermeister
October 14, 2009 at 2:35 pm
30 years ago, the internet wasn’t exactly the same creature we have at our disposal now, I doubt he thought it would have made that big of a difference.
wok3
October 14, 2009 at 7:18 pm
He made the proposal for WWW in 1989.
Jägermeister
October 14, 2009 at 7:55 pm
I accept his apology in the light-hearted spirit it was offered.
Now, if he’d just pay me a dime for every time in my life I’ve had to say: “h… t… t… p…, colon…, forwardslashforwardslash, no I don’t know why there has to be a forwardslashforwardslash…, dubyadubyadubya, dot, g… o… o… g… l… e… dotcom…”.
Cinaedh
October 15, 2009 at 6:07 am
I keep Google set as my home page. Just click the wee icon.
Eideard
October 15, 2009 at 6:20 am
And for the faster Firefox way… type google and then press CTRL-Enter.
Jägermeister
October 15, 2009 at 3:01 pm