Shortly after joining the Internet Explorer team I got a bug from a PM on a popular Microsoft web server product that I'll leave unnamed (from now on UWS). The bug said that IE was handling empty
path segments incorrectly by not removing them before resolving dotted path segments. For example UWS would do the following:
In step 1 they are given a URI with dotted path segment and an empty
path segment. In step 2 they remove the empty path segment, and in step 3 they resolve the dotted path segment. Whereas, given the same initial URI, IE would do the following:
IE simply resolves the dotted path segment against the empty path segment and removes them both. So, how
did I resolve this bug? As "By Design" of course!
The URI RFC allows path segments of zero length and does not assign them any special meaning. So generic user agents that intend to work on the web must not treat an empty path segment any
different from a path segment with some text in it. In the case above IE is doing the correct thing.
That's the case for generic user agents, however servers may decide that a URI with an empty path segment returns the same resource as a the same URI without that empty path segment. Essentially
they can decide to ignore empty path segments. Both IIS and Apache work this way and thus return the same resource for the following URIs:
The issue for UWS is that it removes empty path segments before resolving dotted path segments. It must
follow normal URI procedure before applying its own additional rules for empty path segments. Not doing that means they end up violating URI equivalency rules: URIs (A.1) and (B.2) are equivalent
but UWS will not return the same resource for them.
2011 Jul 6, 7:28"Over this past Fourth Of July weekend, we neglected to note that it was the 15th anniversary of Roland Emmerich’s 1996 blockbuster Independence Day. New York comedian Sean Kleier remembered, and
decided to make his own tribute, going to various locations around New York City—Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge, the subway, and inside a Victoria’s Secret—reciting Bill Pullman’s rousing speech
before the movie's final battle sequence, megaphone and all." humorvideobill-pullmanindependence-daynew-york
2010 Oct 13, 3:11"To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Back To The Future, we've got never-before-seen footage of original star Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly. Plus Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg and Bob Gale all
explaining why they replaced him with Michael J. Fox"backtothefuturebttfmovievideoeric-stoltz
2010 Sep 24, 8:38"Comedian Stephen Colbert joined the panel of witnesses at a House hearing on immigrant farm workers. Mr. Colbert has partnered with United Farm Workers and their campaign calling on unemployed
Americans to take jobs in the agriculture sector. The organization's president, Arturo Rodriguez, also testified at the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security hearing chaired by
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).
Washington, DC : 2 hr. 10 min."humorvideostephen-colbertpoliticsimmigrationfarmlaborhouse
2010 Sep 8, 2:16'Following a news update on the depopulation of honeybees across North America and much of the world, it suddenly dawned on local bank teller Keith Orlander Tuesday that he, personally, was
responsible for the dramatic and theretofore unexplained disappearance of the insects. "Boy, come to think of it, I guess I have been killing millions of bees lately,"'beebeeshumoronion
2010 May 10, 8:59Iggy Pop interviews Shepard Fairey, including his Obama HOPE poster and AP lawsuit:
"... but the American public is generally pretty superficial, so an image like that just allows them to project whatever limited idea they have onto it. Obviously, not everyone is like that—I
actually think there were a lot of people who were bummed by the image because they felt it was shallow propaganda."
"If I spend time conceiving and making a piece of art and somebody else sees that it has market value and replicates it in order to steal part of my market, then that’s not cool. But the way I make
art—the way a lot of people make art—is as an extension of language and communication, where references are incredibly important. It’s about making a work that is inspired by something preexisting
but changes it to have a new value and meaning that doesn’t in any way take away from the original—and, in fact, might provide the original with a second life or a new audience." artlegallawipshepard-faireyobeyinterview
2010 May 2, 3:14"This document contains normative guidelines for web applications built by the Interface Development practice of Isobar North America (previously Molecular)." Glad to see coding styles and best
practices for HTML, CSS, JS, associated HTTP headers etc etc etccodecsshtmlhtml5javascriptwebbrowserprogrammingdevelopmenttechnicalvia:kris.kowal
2010 Mar 26, 5:16Interesting point that web browsers block HTML FORMs from submitting to some ports in order to avoid malicious servers from getting clients to do their dirty work. Of course it requires the host on
the other side of that port to be able to interpret the HTTP request as something relevant to the protocol they actually expect.securitywebbrowseriehttphtmlformtechnical
2010 Mar 23, 12:02"Trailer for the upcoming Weird Al Yankovic biopic. This film is sure to sweep next year's Academy Awards." humorvideoweird-alparodytrailer
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