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Posted by thm 11/2/2025

URLs are state containers(alfy.blog)
512 points | 213 commentspage 7
zkmon 11/2/2025|
You are either changing the meaning of "state", or probably unaware of what it means. To start with, state of what? app (http server) or the http client?
yoavm 11/2/2025|
I think the author is referring to the state of the form.
zkmon 11/2/2025||
State of the form is it's data.
zkmon 11/2/2025||
Not quite. As the L in URL says, it is the locator or address of the state. The S in REST implies the same, indicating states as the content, not path to it.
Scarblac 11/2/2025||
But from the viewpoint of a web app where you navigate between different (versions of) pages, the state of that app can be the address of the currently displayed page.
zkmon 11/2/2025||
It's the state of your browser, not the app. App could be serving different pages to different clients at the same time.
layer8 11/2/2025||
State is just your location in state space.
zkmon 11/2/2025||
An address book is not "state space". The country, land and things are the state.
layer8 11/2/2025||
Not every location represents a state, but every state can be considered a location.

If you want to argue against the use of URLs to represent state, I would concentrate on the “R” (resource) aspect.

zkmon 11/2/2025||
I think you are talking about client's navigational state. The original title of this post was "app state ...". Still it is not clear about state of what.

Navigational state need not be confused with app state. Also talking about "state" as in "state machine" etc used to sound pretty academic with obscure meaning of the word "state". When someone says "state machine" they are basically saying "I'm a PhD and you are not". There are simpler and more crisp ways to convey things rather than via obscurity.

layer8 11/3/2025||
My point was a linguistic-conceptual one, that a location fully describing a state is not a contradiction in terms, and hence it’s not necessarily a misuse of the “URL” concept regarding the “locator” aspect. Navigational versus application state is irrelevant to that argument.
sixhobbits 11/2/2025||
More good content with a bunch of GPT noise added, obvious from patterns like

No database. No cookies. No localStorage

Themes chosen. Languages selected. Plugins enabled.

Which have the pattern of rhetoric but no substance. Clearly the author put significant effort it so why get an LLM to add noise?

ahmadalfy 11/2/2025||
Hello, I am the author of the article and I can explain a few things.

First of all thank you for your words about the content.

I get why you might feel that way. English isn’t my first language, so I sometimes use GPT to help me polish phrasing or find a smoother rhythm for certain lines.

But the ideas, structure, and all the writing direction are mine. I don’t ask it to write articles for me. It just help me express things more clearly. I treat it more like an editor than a writer.

tliltocatl 11/2/2025||
Is it really an LMM? It's not like real humans can't write the same style, LLMs have picked up on an existing stylistic tendency. I hate these patterns as much as anyone, and I have noticed them since long before transformers were a thing.
alex_duf 11/2/2025||
Any blob of byte is a state container
nathsav 11/2/2025||
you can save so much data in the url, I like how pocketcal.com stores the calendar informations
ronreiter 11/2/2025||
Duh :)
unit149 11/3/2025||
[dead]
kgwxd 11/2/2025|
[flagged]