Slashes (//) at the beginning of addresses on the internet always appeared time consuming and irrelevant. And now the very man, who began it all, feels the same.
Internet Pioneer, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the brain behind the World Wide Web, now actually calls it “unnecessary,” as it makes addresses on the website needlessly long.
When he designed the web 30 years ago, he thought it was a brilliant idea. The intent he said, “Was to separate the protocol name (HTTP or FTP) from the rest of the address, but as it turned out only the colon was necessary.” Now he feels it is ‘much of a hassle’.
He further added in his lighthearted apology, while talking to the New York Times, that adding a slash to every address, besides being unnecessary, was also wastage of time, paper and printing.
The director of the World Wide Web Consortium, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, is at present working with the UK government, helping them access government data, which means making data more open and accessible on the web.
Considered as one of the fathers of Internet, Berners-Lee earned a Knighthood in 2004 and was also awarded the ‘Order of Merit’.