881594 - Prevent namespace collisions with Webmaker tools

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Webmaker Graveyard :: DevOps, defect)

Description

[Brett Gaylor [:brett]]

We've had an ongoing discussion in webmaker-dev re: possible solutions to namespace collisions.

I feel that a best-case scenario would be 

Option A) On save, each tool checks if a user has a make in the makeAPI that matches the name of a given make.

Given time constraints, this might be hard.  Less optimal would be:

Option B) Publishing to a directory inside their bucket, so brett.makes.org/p/mycatvid and brett.makes.org/t/mycatvid could exist for popcorn and for thimble

Option B is not great because:
-user probably just want to share "mycatvid" and it would be confusing to have one for each tool, and
-spoils the url

However, many are of the opinion that users don't care as much about urls as we do. I personally do but may be alone.

Pomax - is Option A doable?

Comment 1

[Pomax]

users care a great deal about URLs and anyone who says otherwise is welcome to prove me wrong through user testing. However, I believe they care that, because they're working with a suite of programs, the fact that one url is "pomax.makes.org/thimble/lolcats" and the other is "pomax.makes.org/popcorn/lolcats" tells them what they'll be looking at. Having information that allows you to see that something going to be a webpage, or a video, even before you open the page, is filter information that everyone relies on when they use the web (and why t.co and bit.ly links are so dubious).

That said, A will require a good solution that I'm not sure of we can come up with in the remaining few days. My best idea would be to use what we have right now, and later on let the MakeAPI proxy links. "personalise make -> url = pomax.makes.org/lolcats", doing the same as bit.ly or t.co or imgur.com -- there are real URLs, and we have a service that lets you turn them into sweet shorter urls. But, that too might not be feasible in the next few days, so I'm going to advocate B, which we have right now. Title collisions may happen, we throw up a warning that the project has been saved at the current editor URL, but not published, and that the user needs to change the document title. 

This is something that needs time dedicated by several people to sit down, think this through, and find out how this has been solved before by others, if we want to do it right, not sure we'll have that time this week.

Comment 2

[Brett Gaylor [:brett]]

Like the idea of a down the line URL shortener, too.  Go proudly with B, sir!

Comment 3

[Pomax]

Then I shall unmark as blocker, since we're running B atm =)

Comment 4

[Pomax]

(resetting assignment, I'm sure it'll go back on me when we do a component scum)

Comment 5

[Pomax]

do we still want to explore this?

Comment 6

[Jon Buckley [:jbuck]]

Yes, it's something we should do, and we already have the tools necessary to do this: The MakeAPI! The MakeAPI already has a unique constraint set on the URL so all we'd need to do is change the order of publishing such that you "reserve" a URL in the MakeAPI first.