From the department of things it would never have occurred to me to complain about:
How many times have you cursed the web gods when your browser went astray after you mangled the web address/URL by omitting the two slashes (strokes) or using the accursed backslashes? How many times have you had to take a cough drop after telling someone a URL: “it’s ach tee tee pee colon backslash backslash…no, freakin’ Microsoft…that’s forward slash forward slash gee oh oh gee ell ee dot cee oh em….What, you want me to repeat it? That’s ach tee tee colon forward slash….forget it.["?]
…Never, IIRC. I mean, first of all, most browsers have done the http:// for you automatically for like ten years. Ten? Maybe seven or eight? I feel like it became really pervasive while I was in college. But why, even in the nineties, would I have been mad at Sir Tim Berners-Lee when I made a typo? And is it so terrible to have to look at a 404 page for five seconds?
Everything annoys someone, so there must be people who are specifically annoyed by those slashes, but I have never made or heard such a complaint. And while we’re here, why does anyone still start with the http when saying a URL out loud? Apparently some people do, but honestly you shouldn’t. I mean, if someone doesn’t understand the part before www by now, it’s okay, because they don’t have to anymore, because their browser will put it in for them.
I can’t think of a common reason to say all that crap out loud unless 1) you are tech support, in which case, even if the person you are talking to has already gone to the URL and is reading you the words thereon, you apparently have to go over it again very carefully including the physical location of the forward slash on the keyboard, at least if the customer you’re talking to is a girl;[1] or 2) you’re helping your parent who’s on an old machine and can’t remember how a URL works no matter how many times you’ve done this,[2] in which case dealing with a couple of forward slashes is not all that much work, considering everything your parent(s) did for you.
Sir Tim, there’s nothing wrong with your strokes. It’s very nice of you to continue thinking about ways that the user experience of your tremendous gift to the world could have been improved — I imagine, thinking of the computer scientists I’ve known, that it’s probably also involuntary that you continue to do so — but if it weren’t the strokes, it would be something else. People who write silly semi-humorous science-and-technology fluff pieces will always find something to pretend is really hard about using the internet.
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P.S. Yes, I know that URLs are not the only kind of URI, but what we are talking about here is URLs and the use thereof in everyday web browsing, and you know perfectly well that that’s what we’re talking about, imaginary pedantic commenter in my head.
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[1] Not that I have been on the customer end of that conversation or anything!
[2] For the record, my mom had to learn to use the web when she was well into adulthood, and she got the hang of it several years ago and now she uses “Yelp” as a verb.
