[Web4lib] A very basic quesiont on library home page URL format

[Thomas Dowling]

> Early versions of Netscape and Mosiac had to have the "www" to find and
> access most servers via an URL. When IE came along, it "broke" the
> convention and provided translation for the domain name without requiring
> the "www" to exist as a name, DNS entry, or alias, etc. Thus, we got a more
> complex naming world, but also it "saved the time" somewhat of users who
> liked short-and-sweet and easier to type entries.

I'd rephrase this.  Early web browsers needed the exact host name.
Netscape (and IE later on, IIRC) instituted a "you're probably lazy,
I'll make a best guess" algorithm that would tack things on to whatever
you entered until it found a host, but only if what you entered didn't
match anything.  So you could enter "foo" in the address bar and the
browser would try, in order, "foo" on the local network, "foo.com", and
"www.foo.com".


-- 
Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu