Crufty the Clown

Sunday, 16 November 2003

Hypothetically speaking, let’s say that you’re using Movable Type to run a web site. And let’s say you’re the type of perfectionist who cares about things such as exactly what your URLs look like.

Furthermore, let’s say your site has been up and running for a while, using URLs you are no longer quite happy with, because you agree with Waferbaby and Matthew Thomas that it’s a bit crufty to end them all with “.html”.

Thus, you want to:

1. Change the structure of the URLs generated by Movable Type, eschewing filename extensions.
2. Maintain backward-compatibility with the URLs you’ve already published. Breaking links is way worse, infinitely worse, than a bit of cruftiness.

What I would recommend, if you ever find yourself in this hypothetical situation, is simply following Mark Pilgrim’s easy-to-follow instructions. As opposed to, say, wasting a Sunday afternoon trying to do it your own way.