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Re: Current page - link or no link

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From: Rimantas Liubertas
Date: Dec 1, 2005 6:20AM

2005/12/1, Jukka K. Korpela < <EMAIL REMOVED> >:
<...>
> If I follow a link and nothing happens (i.e. the page remains the same),
> the natural expectation is that something is very wrong.

When I suspect I am on the page to which given link points my natural
expectation I click the link exactly to make sure I am. So it is not "very
wrong" it is what I expect. If something happens when I click, that
means I was wrong in my assumptions.

<...>
> > Another case when linking current page may be useful is when pages is
> > updates, e.g. has
> > comments. Sure, one can use "refresh", but I prefer a link, especially
> > in case I have posted
> > a comment :)
>
> This is a particularly good example of why such links should _not_ be
> used.
>
> A link to the page itself is _not_ a refresh button. A browser _should
> not_ and _does not_ refresh the page, if the caching mechanisms indicate
> that the page is cacheable. A normal user cannot know whether it is, so
> he should expect that following a link to the page itself causes no
> action, though it might refresh the page on Tuesday evenings if the phase
> of the moon is favorable.

Define "normal user". But thats not the point.

The point is: I prefer clicking link for the simple reason: I try to
avoid double posting.
And "normal user" indeed has no way to know before hand, how well server side
copes with double posting. So I take no risk.

No from HTTP point of view it makes no difference did I click a link,
or just hit refresh
button (I am not talking about modifier keys which force browser to
add headers to
demand uncached copy).
Caching mechanism work the same: browser sends a request,
and gets a responese "not modified" if nothing has changed, or the new content.

What matters for me is the end result - if there is something new, I
want to see it,
if not - I don't care if I get the same old content from the browsers cache (if
caching is impelemented well), o resent from the server.

> If you post comments, you need to learn how to use your browser to get the
> refreshed page. Simple as that. Having learned this, you can use the
> technique anyway, instead of using a technique that may sometimes work on
> a minority of pages that have been misdesigned to contain self-referencing
> links.

See above. Hitting self referencing link works. Hitting refresh may result in
double posting. And no, I am not willing to learn, how each site deals with
two identical post requests.

I also would like to see some backing for "minority" and "misdesigned" claims.

Regards,
Rimantas
--
http://rimantas.com/