7

I think it does more harm than good.

Matching urls in code is just a little bit harder.

Servers are capible of running more than one port on an IP and usually different services don't conflict.

Add a subdomain if you need another service running on a different IP.

This practice make configuring things like wordpress, SEO, and cloudfare just a little more complicated.

Here's an idea. If someone contacts your server at the ip listed for that base domain on port 80.. just serve the page. We don't need to give the server any more clarification.

I think it does more harm than good. Matching urls in code is just a little bit harder. Servers are capible of running more than one port on an IP and usually different services don't conflict. Add a subdomain if you need another service running on a different IP. This practice make configuring things like wordpress, SEO, and cloudfare just a little more complicated. Here's an idea. If someone contacts your server at the ip listed for that base domain on port 80.. just serve the page. We don't need to give the server any more clarification.

6 comments

[–] xyzzy 4 points (+4|-0)

That matter is discussed for at least a decade now.

My current opinion is, that it's best to forward everything to https and www to non-www.

[–] kromulent 1 points (+1|-0)

Could you summarize the ELI5 (or maybe ELI14) version of both sides of this one? I never really understood it.

[–] xyzzy 2 points (+2|-0)

The nowww side argued that the www is antiquated and no longer needed since practically all http links would go to the www.

The yeswww side was more focused on other services like mail or ftp or whatever which might have a port 80 endpoint as well.

In the end no one actually cared and port 80 and 443 forward to the main web site as the www counterparts do.

[–] fusir [OP] 1 points (+1|-0)

I suppose one www argument is that http and www are not exactly the same. Assumption that port 80/http means www means that the next www might not get started if it also wants to use http rather that tcp.

Like maybe one day we decide html isn't that great and people browse content written in json or yml with nearly no similarity in element meanings.

Describing a WX widget in yml wouldn't be that weird so from there perspective when html was new and WX was still relevent we could have ended up with a WX app internet.. still running over http.