Cool URLs Don’t Change, Unless…

Published on Jan 23, 2025, filed under development. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)

This is one of 180 articles that you can also read in an ebook: On Web Development II.

I cannot imagine I’m the only one missing and then mentally making the following amendment, and so I can’t help but document a brief, deferential refinement of Tim Berners-Lee’s 1998 classic, Cool URIs Don’t Change:

Cool URLs don’t change—unless they are being redirected.

But—the first—, this is imprecise (which I think starts with the original, but that I’m open to have put on me), and reminds of a language game. The imprecision seems to originate in the unspoken connection between a URL and a resource, with resources being moved being the cause of URLs changing (“cool resources don’t move”?).

But—the second—, it’s also nothing new (you’ll work like this), and it’s merely spelling out a crucial aspect of web maintenance and hygiene. We don’t always get resource locations and URLs right, but we are (or should be) able to redirect and therefore deprecate the ones that don’t fit our architecture or preferences anymore.

“URLs,” not “URIs,” in the spirit of the URL standard; and redirected, of course, to an available, equivalent, and, ideally, useful destination.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, Frontend Dogma).

I love trying things—in web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)