URLs with underscores

[Aaron VonderHaar]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall the only _real_ user complain
(as opposed to theoretical ones) is the case of the user expecting
literal underscores in the word but unexpectedly getting emphasis.

The only hypothetical case that has been cited of users _wanting_
mid-word emphasis is "un_fucking_believable," which, if that word were
to become as popular as it is argued, would likely end up being
shortened to "unfuckingbelievable" by the average user, thus
circumventing the problem.

What I'm getting at is that it would be useful to see a much larger
set of real-world examples that require mid-word emphasis.  Unless
such a list can be produced, I suggest that whatever new syntax is
decided on, it should give priority to the literal underscore case.

Then again, this comment is coming from a programmer, not a novelist
(but I suppose any novelist using markdown would also be familiar with
URLs having underscores).

--Aaron VonderHaar

On 06/07/05, John Gruber <gruber at fedora.net> wrote:

> Alastair Rankine <arsptr at optusnet.com.au> wrote on 07/06/05 at 8:41 pm:

> 

> > John, I like your ideas but I have one of my own for you to ponder. What

> > if we were to disable mid-word emphasis (ie pass underscores through

> > unchanged) if any _other_ punctuation was encountered in the word?

> >

> > http://foo_bar_baz.com      =>  http://foo_bar_baz.com

> > foo_bar_baz.cpp             =>  foo_bar_baz.cpp

> > foo_bar_baz()               =>  foo_bar_baz()

> > path/foo_bar_baz            =>  path/foo_bar_baz

> > un_fucking_believable       =>  un<em>fucking</em>believable

> > _freeway_                   =>  <em>freeway</em>

> > _three_way                  =>  <em>three</em>way

> 

> That's not a bad idea at all.

> 

> But I suspect it might not be enough -- that there might be people

> who refer to file names that don't have dot-extensions, or who refer

> to subroutines without the parens (`foo_bar_baz` instead of

> `foo_bar_baz()`), so I'm not sure this has any advantages over the

> previous two ideas.

> 

> Another question is whether we should have different rules for `_`

> and `*`. Meaning, if we change the rules to say that either or both

> of the `_` emphasis markers must occur at a word break, should we

> change the rules for `*` to match?

> 

> On the one hand, it certainly would simplify the rules /

> documentation to just say that the rules for `_` and `*` are exactly

> the same, period.

> 

> On the other hand, the only people who are complaining about this in

> the current implementation are doing so because of `_`, not `*`. I

> think this is because `_` occurs commonly in variable and function

> names, but `*` does not.

> 

> -J.G.

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