Subject:
Re: DocBook created html may break links but LinuxDoc OK
From:
"Chris Karakas" ####@####.####
Date:
15 Dec 2003 21:56:15 -0000
Message-Id: <20031215.CXu.75651900@www.karakas-online.de>
Finally, I feel understood again! :-)
Thanks David!
For those who missed the story, go and read the thread
Re: Review of GNU/Linux Tools Summary
There, I pleaded for
Cool labels don't change!
I presented my reasons in the posts in that thread and there was quite a controversy
- and a heated one, so if you are interested, go and read it, you will be rewarded. :-)
O.K., that was for those who might have missed our previous discussion.
Now, to your LinuxDoc evangelism David: I find it O.K., why not. But I will not
switch. The reason is that I use LyX to create my documents, then let LyX export
them to DocBook SGML, then I start some scripts of mine that, in turn, use sed, awk
etc. to *correct* the SGML from LyX (which does not fit me, as it stands and is
perhaps buggy), then start all the machinery of openjade, pdfjadetex etc etc to
create all my documents.
I will not change that working procedure. It's as simple as that. Maybe, when I
publish my scripts, someone (you? ;-) ) will adapt them to LinuxDoc - I will be glad
to see this, if it helps some people.
And there is another reason: I like the possibility to set the filename as I like.
This gives me the freedom to
*Choose URIs wisely*
http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/uri-choose
, not having to use cryptic names.
It even gives me the option to tweak the label (read: filename) to be similar to the
document's title (that's what the DSSSL stylesheets will put inside the HTML <title>
tags in the header *and* in the <H1> tags in the body). That gives me a boost on
Google, because Google likes it when the filename correlates to the title "inside". ;-)
Of course, if one *does not* want to be found by search engines, one does not need
to tweak that much. ;-)
To Tille:
Now you know why I put that disclaimer there, in my second post on this (addressed
to Martin):
------
Let me put a preemtive disclaimer here: I know that you can put a "HTML permanent
redirect" in your .htaccess file to indicate that the resource is now somewhere
else, under a different name. But this makes URL management difficult for me. How on
earth shall I know which labels Guru (the author whose document I host) changed in
his last reorganization? Am I supposed to do nothing else a whole day, other than
chasing diff outputs and editing .htaccess files? Just because the author wants to
keep his freedom of changing labels at his whim?
--------
You send an "Error 404: not found". That's not the recommended way (recommended from
W3C). You should send a permanent redirect. See
*Managing URIs*
http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/uri-manage
Now, when you finish reading that document of the W3C, come back and tell me if I am
not right saying that this is too complicated for me as a webmaster who might host,
say, 10 HOWTOs. You will end up doing diffs and trying to find out which document
changed name to what, after the last "reorganization" of the author. A nightmare!
Isn't it simpler to keep those labels unchanged? This way, we take care that the
problem does not even arise, not chasing down answers to the problem, after it has
made our lives like hell.
Imagine, a redirect has to be in your .htaccess file (or web conf file) until the
last request has been seen in your web logs for the old URI (theoretically, at
least, otherwise you loose the visitor). How long is this? 10 years? How big does
your .htaccess become if I start "reorganizing" my labels(!) every other week?
(don't tell me I exaggerate, I see there are people who update quite regularly their
HOWTOs, I see it in the LDP News in my RSS news reader ;-) ).
In the long run, every 404, every redirect, hurts LDP's visibility in the SERPS.
Maybe LDP is big and does not notice. Sure thing is, we could get even more exposure
of our documents if we stick to this simple rule, at least for DocBook SGML documents:
Cool labels don't change! :-)
O.K., I shut up, I go get a beer, I can't even read it myself anymore! :-)
--
--
Regards
Chris Karakas
http://www.karakas-online.de
