Working with a foreign developer who has made a suggestion - confused

irlforum

Hi there,
I'm new here - Hello to everyone. I am starting work with a developer and one of his suggestions is to change my filename extensions from .htm to .html.

His idea behind it seems to be that it's just an old way of doing things. I can't find anything on W3c making recommendations or anything.

I know that there is no difference between .htm and .html accept one is missing a letter.

Has anyone any advice to give?

Thanks.

Liam Byrne

Makes absolutely no difference, tbh.

Lots of sites's files have other extensions like .php

If he'll do it for free, let him off; if not, tell him leave it alone.

Bob_Harris

Change your current file extensions from htm to html? This will break external links to your site if not handled properly.

Waste of time as it makes zero difference.

If you are going to tinker with extensions, thus changing all the internal links on your site, you might as well make your URLs user friendly by removing extensions, hiding query strings etc with URL rewrites.

irlforum

It just seemed to be said in such a way that .htm is now an old way of doing things so we should change all the links.

I don't see the point at all but I could understand that the W3C might want to standardize or something...but no info came up when I ran a search on the W3C website.

Just seems abit odd to me. Curious as to why you think it's an ok idea Liam if he does it for free?

Thanks for your replies.

Liam Byrne

irlforum wrote: »

Curious as to why you think it's an ok idea Liam if he does it for free?

I don't think there's any point to it, and as pointed out all of the links would need to be tested, etc.

My point was that - if he's happier working with .html - just tell him that it's not required (so therefore you're not paying for it) but that if it makes him happier and he's prepared to do it for free so that he's happier working on it - and if he agrees to test all the links, he can work away.

irlforum

Ok thanks for taking your time to answer my query here lads.

samhail

i would tend to go for .html over .htm for some reason.

Bob_Harris

If I had to choose I'd go with .htm over html.

I think it looks neater.

Liam Byrne

samhail wrote: »

i would tend to go for .html over .htm for some reason.

Working from scratch on a new site, yes. The .htm is "old", in the sense that it's from back when computers could only handle 3-letter file extensions.

But changing it on a whole existing site, and the subsequent testing, is a waste of time......there's no benefit to it.

Liam Byrne

irlforum wrote: »

a pedant is a good person to get to do your work.

irlforum wrote: »

A pedant is a bad person to get to do your work.

irlforum wrote: »

He also made another suggestion to me about CSS changes - now I need to learn CSS inside out to make an informed decision - I might aswell make the changes myself.

CSS is a no-brainer, TBH.

It simplifies the code on pages so that search engines like your site more, and it also means that your site looks consistent and is easier to change further down the line.

Pain in the butt when retrofitting to a large, old site, but once it's done - great going forward.

And therein might be the answer - he may well be pretty much deconstructing every page, and if so he'll be re-saving new versions, so the task of using the new extension isn't isolated and pointless.

He is inviting a LOT of link checking, though.....then again, a .htaccess file redirecting all .htm requests to the equivalent .html would get around this.

irlforum

Liam Byrne wrote: »

CSS is a no-brainer, TBH.

It simplifies the code on pages so that search engines like your site more, and it also means that your site looks consistent and is easier to change further down the line.

Pain in the butt when retrofitting to a large, old site, but once it's done - great going forward.

And therein might be the answer - he may well be pretty much deconstructing every page, and if so he'll be re-saving new versions, so the task of using the new extension isn't isolated and pointless.

He is inviting a LOT of link checking, though.....then again, a .htaccess file redirecting all .htm requests to the equivalent .html would get around this.

I just deleted my last post there because I thought it might be interpreted as rude or judgmental (hey.... I'm new here! (hands up)). After seeing your reply and seeing you receiving it as funny I now regret but too late - I didn't save it.

The site is actually CSS already - I think he was saying he wanted to change it from relative to floating - I'll have to dig out my IM conversation with him again to confirm this though. Need to eat something here and I'll do that then.

ScumLord

I thought the two where interchangeable, I'm surprised to hear if you change HTM to HTML it would break the link I would have thought the browser would recognise them both as the same link and it wouldn't matter to the link if the "L" was there or not.

irlforum

Ok I've dug the conversation out here now.

What he's saying is that absolute positioning was used to create the pages at the beginning but because there is more content now on one of the pages than he initally thought there would be, he thinks fluid CSS would be a better solution.

At the moment when I look at the webpage it does work fine (though I've only tested it here on 1920x1280, the actual website owner is viewing on 1024x768 though and hasn't reported any oddities) - I suppose from my own POV I am most concerned with efficient loading times and not upsetting any of the google spiders. Having said that I don't think any of these things will be affected, I'd say it's just easier for design and layout issues from designer side of the table. Should just learn CSS and confirm this for myself - probably would only take a few minutes but I'm just focused on so many other things now - have about 20 tabs open in firefox here.

ocallagh

Just out of interest is 'foreign' new lingo for a contractor or something?

Liam Byrne

ScumLord wrote: »

I thought the two where interchangeable, I'm surprised to hear if you change HTM to HTML it would break the link I would have thought the browser would recognise them both as the same link and it wouldn't matter to the link if the "L" was there or not.

Not the case - it's a different file extension, therefore a different file, and the browser has no control over whether the server delivers a "similar" filename.

It can be managed server-side, usually through a .htaccess file - I've even seen some servers configured to deliver the "closest-match" filename.

The browser will request the server to deliver whatever filename is typed in - the only usual variation on this is the "index" page of a folder, which can have numerous options.

But it's up to the server what it delivers, not the browser. And 99% of the time, that's the exact filename as entered in the browser bar.

And on a unix server, a difference in case (uppercase vs lowercase) could be a different file......not advisable, but certainly possible.

php-fox

.html is the proper extension for html files. .HTM extension was introduced by microsoft in their windows environment in attempt to promote windows over linux hosting, apart from a bunch of other things. It is their tendency to break any attempt of standardisation of anything computer related that might work on several platforms. Fear of loosing monopoly.
When I see .htm it screams of unprofessionalism. Yard is a little man's meter, .htm is a little man's .html
Further, web servers send header for html pages, that say (!surprise) text/html. Even though it won't make any difference if this header is sent for a .htm file, or a file with no extension what so ever, it is still a bad style.

You know, you can write a business document on a black background with white letters, or on a white background with purple comic sans font and it won't make any difference to the way the reader will understand the contents... But it'll make some difference to their opinion about the writer
Now, html and htm is not that dramatic, but please use .html

Bob_Harris

php-fox wrote: »

When I see .htm it screams of unprofessionalism. Yard is a little man's meter, .htm is a little man's .html

Complete and utter nonsense.

php-fox wrote: »

Further, web servers send header for html pages, that say (!surprise) text/html.

So do .php and .aspx, among others. Are these somehow "unprofessional" file extensions?

Liam Byrne

php-fox wrote: »

When I see .htm it screams of unprofessionalism. Yard is a little man's meter, .htm is a little man's .html

You know, you can write a business document on a black background with white letters, or on a white background with purple comic sans font and it won't make any difference to the way the reader will understand the contents... But it'll make some difference to their opinion about the writer

Partial apologies in advance, but given the rest of the post re "small things / spelling / making a difference" in the opinion to the reader..... it's relevant to point this out....... I presume you mean metre ?

Unless, of course you're actually measuring the unprofessionalism

tricky D

php-fox wrote: »

.html is the proper extension for html files. .HTM extension was introduced by microsoft in their windows environment in attempt to promote windows over linux hosting, apart from a bunch of other things. It is their tendency to break any attempt of standardisation of anything computer related that might work on several platforms. Fear of loosing monopoly.

Nope. It's just the legacy of M$ using 8.3 filenames format which was adopted way before http/html was even conceived. No conspiracy, nothing to see here, move along.

cormee

php-fox wrote: »

When I see .htm it screams of unprofessionalism. Yard is a little man's meter, .htm is a little man's .html
Further, web servers send header for html pages, that say (!surprise) text/html. Even though it won't make any difference if this header is sent for a .htm file, or a file with no extension what so ever, it is still a bad style.

What in the name of Jesus are you talking about?

tricky D

cormee wrote: »

What in the name of Jesus are you talking about?

Confusing mime/content types for file extensions.

cormee

tricky D wrote: »

Confusing mime/content types for file extensions.

Sorry, was referring to his considering .htm unprofessional. First, and probably the last, time I've encountered file extension snobbery.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Ahh .htm, that brings me back to my frontpage express days.
RE: looking professional... the only people who're going to notice or be bothered by it are other web nerds... and even then there's still the chance that you're being ironic and making an inside joke.