Comments on: The Case For Cruft http://www.socialtwister.com/2004/01/27/the-case-for-cruft/ Confessions of a Social Tools Architect Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:44:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.3 by: estacja http://www.socialtwister.com/2004/01/27/the-case-for-cruft/#comment-5218 Thu, 06 Oct 2005 21:43:43 +0000 http://www.socialtwister.com/2004/01/27/the-case-for-cruft/#comment-5218 <a href="http://e-stacja.net/sms.htm" rel="nofollow">http://e-stacja.net/sms.htm</a> sms - <a href="http://e-stacja.net/dzwonki.htm" rel="nofollow">http://e-stacja.net/dzwonki.htm</a> dzwonki - <a href="http://e-stacja.net/radio.htm" rel="nofollow">http://e-stacja.net/radio.htm</a> radia http://e-stacja.net/sms.htm sms - http://e-stacja.net/dzwonki.htm dzwonki - http://e-stacja.net/radio.htm radia

]]> by: mico http://www.socialtwister.com/2004/01/27/the-case-for-cruft/#comment-5208 Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:30:27 +0000 http://www.socialtwister.com/2004/01/27/the-case-for-cruft/#comment-5208 <a href="http://www.canadiantire.ca/assortments/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374303514237&#38;PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524442914373&#38;ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474395348027&#38;bmUID=1075397093603&#38;assortment=primary" rel="nofollow">http://www.canadiantire.ca/assortments/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374303514237&#38;PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524442914373&#38;ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474395348027&#38;bmUID=1075397093603&#38;assortment=primary</a> all i wanted was a desklamp. also: <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cruft" rel="nofollow">http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cruft</a> http://www.canadiantire.ca/assortments/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374303514237&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524442914373&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474395348027&bmUID=1075397093603&assortment=primary

all i wanted was a desklamp.

also:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cruft

]]> by: Andrew http://www.socialtwister.com/2004/01/27/the-case-for-cruft/#comment-5207 Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:17:35 +0000 http://www.socialtwister.com/2004/01/27/the-case-for-cruft/#comment-5207 Greg I completely agree with your point of view on "cruft" in URLs. I might take this a step further and say that a URL as an entity is cruft no matter how short and uncluttered. Perhaps a URL should never be considered an appropriate user friendly way for any human to find web content. This was not always the case and I know the origin of the URL was to get away from less desirable IP addressing. As the web has developed from the quaint small town of hand hewn personal sites to the machine readable database backed monster it is today the structure and, at times, the existence of a readable URL should be dictated by the efficiency of another machine's ability to read and parse it and NOT the deficiencies of humans. This leads me to point out one of the errors in Oli's assumptions. The good search engines DO read the URL query string. They HAVE to. The idea of "cruft free" URLs is appealing from the human standpoint but a machine really could care less. We are developing a web that uses machines to handle our data and assist us sifting through mounds of it to get the thing we're after. This is, perhaps, the best case for paying close attention to the storage format and information architecture for the data, and less attention to a URL. The URL, by its very nature, is ephemeral and undesirable (read: cruft). We hope that the data is not. ;-) Greg I completely agree with your point of view on “cruft” in URLs. I might take this a step further and say that a URL as an entity is cruft no matter how short and uncluttered. Perhaps a URL should never be considered an appropriate user friendly way for any human to find web content. This was not always the case and I know the origin of the URL was to get away from less desirable IP addressing. As the web has developed from the quaint small town of hand hewn personal sites to the machine readable database backed monster it is today the structure and, at times, the existence of a readable URL should be dictated by the efficiency of another machine’s ability to read and parse it and NOT the deficiencies of humans. This leads me to point out one of the errors in Oli’s assumptions. The good search engines DO read the URL query string. They HAVE to. The idea of “cruft free” URLs is appealing from the human standpoint but a machine really could care less. We are developing a web that uses machines to handle our data and assist us sifting through mounds of it to get the thing we’re after. This is, perhaps, the best case for paying close attention to the storage format and information architecture for the data, and less attention to a URL. The URL, by its very nature, is ephemeral and undesirable (read: cruft). We hope that the data is not. ;-)

]]> by: oli http://www.socialtwister.com/2004/01/27/the-case-for-cruft/#comment-5206 Thu, 29 Jan 2004 06:48:42 +0000 http://www.socialtwister.com/2004/01/27/the-case-for-cruft/#comment-5206 Hi Greg, I was interested to read your article. I agree with some of the things you've discussed, like your thoughts on "easy to type" and "easy to remember", but I still come to a different conclusion. I've written up my comments in a reply on my site because they got a little long for a comment: <a href="http://oli.boblet.net/2004/01/29/cruft" rel="nofollow">http://oli.boblet.net/2004/01/29/cruft</a> Feel free to shoot me down here or there! peace - oli Hi Greg,

I was interested to read your article. I agree with some of the things you’ve discussed, like your thoughts on “easy to type” and “easy to remember”, but I still come to a different conclusion. I’ve written up my comments in a reply on my site because they got a little long for a comment:
http://oli.boblet.net/2004/01/29/cruft
Feel free to shoot me down here or there!

peace - oli

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