"For the web apps that have made the jump already it’s too late but I urge you to think really hard about making the jump to hashbang URLs when creating new content or considering a switch from traditional URLs. There is a path forward in the not too distant future. pushState is coming to browsers at quite a rate."

"URLs are universal....They are the one universal syntax of the web. Don’t take that for granted."

"We’re all building tools around information and real time communication, and it matters that it works as often as possible."

"Such brittleness for no real reason or a benefit that outweighs the downside."

The humble URL has been on my mind a lot recently. Through a series of developments, this simple means of addressing the wonders of the web has been obfuscated and abused, to the point that it’s now seen as difficult to use and an affront to users.

"I don’t know about you, but a future without URLs and without the infinite organicity of the web frightens me."

URL-shorteners violate three key principles of resilient design: they offer no transparency, no redundancy, and no decentralization. They're classic single-points of failure.

from Nettuts+.

from simon willison's weblog.

W3C Hypertext Style.

bad for the ecosystem.

navigating a web site simply by the url.

a single resource at a single persistent url, data availability, and the network effect.

input a string of text and encode or decode it as you like.