Don't use a trailing slash on reference links #567
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Following the standard established by the sample reference pages, don't put a trailing slash on links to Language Reference pages. Although either way works, it's better that all the links are consistent so that contributors don't waste time trying to figure out which style they need to use. I have left any trailing slashes on non-Language Reference links.
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@per1234 One more question: Does this apply to only links to the reference or external links as well? When I searched for Do we need to update these links, too? |
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I like consistency because it makes it easier on the contributors. I could spend 15 seconds adding a link and then 15 minutes looking through the existing content trying to figure out why a trailing slash was used in one place but not in another, and which is correct for my link. From reading https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5948659/when-should-i-use-a-trailing-slash-in-my-url I got the impression there may be functional reasons to use a trailing slash on URLs in some cases and not use it in others. I think I decided that we have a clear precedent set for the reference links in the reference sample page, but what's correct for the reference links is not guaranteed to be correct for random external links. Rather than try to figure that out, I decided to limit the PR to the links I was fairly confident about changing. Really, it came down to me not being an expert in web stuff and deciding "when in doubt, leave it alone". I'm receptive to opinions on whether we can safely assume that all external links can safely do without trailing slashes. I suspect it would be a very rare case where it couldn't. I also don't think we are likely to accumulate many more external links since apparently there is a policy against them. So we have a limited set of URLs that would need to be analyzed. |
As far as I can see only 4 in the readme and 1 (2 occurence) towards asciitable.com :) |
Following the standard established by the sample reference pages, don't put a trailing slash on links to Language Reference pages. Although either way works, it's better that all the links are consistent so that contributors don't waste time trying to figure out which style they need to use. I have left any trailing slashes as is on non-Language Reference links.