All Links Must Be To Web Pages
Jeff Atwood posted a rant about the iTunes Music Store requiring iTunes to be installed in order to access it. In particular, he didn’t like how a link to something on the iTMS resulted in an error page if you didn’t have iTunes installed.
Is it so unreasonable to expect links in your browser to resolve to, oh, I don't know, web pages containing information about the thing you just clicked on? Is there anything more anti-web than demanding users install custom software to display information that could have just as easily been delivered through the browser?
It’s an exceptionally compelling argument but there’s one small flaw. If you’re not sure what it is, just drop me an email.
July 13th, 2008 at 3:48 am
I call you out on that by leaving a comment as a valid alternative ;) Jeff’s rant focusses on the fact that having iTunes is the *only* way in.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Comments were invented *long* after email. For a long, long time standalone clients were the only way to access email - there weren’t any webmail clients even. The expectation that everything has to be accessible in your browser or it’s “breaking” the internet is just plain wrong and doesn’t reflect the history, present or future of the internet.
Of course, saying it that way is far less witty… :)
July 25th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
You mean we can ignore any part of the internet we like when making blog posts? That should certainly make things easier!
July 25th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
I’m not sure I understand which side your taking. Are you criticizing me for ignoring comments or are you now agreeing with me and criticising Joel for ignoring all the bits of the internet which aren’t the web?
If you’re still disagreeing with me, I was using a historical situation to show that the web != internet and thus having things that are on the internet but not on the web makes perfect sense. Thus, not all links need to go to a web page which is my point. Now it’s quite reasonable to argue that you’d prefer a web interface to a given system and I’m not disputing that just saying it’s not uncommon for a link to take you to something that’s not a web page and thus it is unreasonable to expect links in your browser to resolve to a web page.