Why Does the ‘Founder of the Internet’ Regret Adding “//” to the URL?

When Tim Berners-Lee, the so-called “inventor of the Internet”, invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989, web addresses (URLs) certain rules and symbols to be in standard format developed.

One of these is the text at the beginning of the URLs, which transports the URLs to resources on the internet. It was the expression “http://” meaning “Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)” however, Lee regretted this format years later.

Let’s start from the basics. Why double slash?

The double slash was a symbol used to indicate hierarchy in structuring the URL, and in the early years of the internet addressing resources on the network It was necessary for.

The phrase “http://” told the web browser which protocol this address would be processed with. This is a part of the part that comes after the protocol specification, such as the domain name. points to the web resource It was used to show.

Tim Berners-Lee regretted this format.

Years later, Berners-Lee recalled some of the choices he made when designing this format. unnecessary and dysfunctional He realized it was. Web browsers could already recognize that the part after the protocol specification was a web resource.

Berners-Lee said that this situation is beneficial for both developers and users. brings an extra burden, He stated that with the technology and understanding of the early years, he did not question the necessity of this symbol.

He also said that if he were to redesign a URL format, he would remove the double slashes completely. “http: sample.com” He said that he would choose much simpler formats such as.

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