RE: htm and html extensions

Just got off the phone with the IT Manager at my wife's company.  He was 
kind enough to lead me through my server-structure ignorance in a slow, 
gentle fashion.  His explanation was along the lines of that posted by Hank 
Marquardt, Kid Stevens and Andrew McFarland in response to my query at this 
forum.  Perhaps the most interesting outcome from the phone discussion 
consistent with, but also of broader scope, was the fact that it seems - 
while argued for good form - in many cases, .htm or .html is not required 
on Web servers for page access.  Clearly, I am not arguing for removal of 
the extensions (I am still digesting much of this), but it's always 
interesting when one is confronted with a new learning of this 
sort.  Thanks to all for the feedback.

Cheers,
Ralph

At 06:48 AM 7/19/02 -0500, you wrote:
>An Answer --
>my-choice.com is running Apache; read the following, particularly near
>the bottom "Note on Hyperlink Naming Conventions"
>
>Which basically says 'foo' is a valid hyperlink value for apache
>regardless of the underlying technology (provided Apache has a handler
>for foo's extension) so foo.html, foo.htm, foo.cgi, foo.php, foo.pl
>would all be valid, if you have multiples of 'foo' (ie, foo.html *and*
>foo.php) in the directory, there are other Content Negotiation
>directives that come into play
>http://httpd.apache.org/docs/content-negotiation.html
>... and if you were curious about what I was talking about in my other
>post, here's an article on 'clean urls':
>http://www.evolt.org/article/18/22880/
>Hank

> > Somehow, I was trained that proper file access would require *.htm or
> > .html* after "jacksonville."
> >
> > I have run a few tests on the back-end of my own servers and, sure enough,
> > www.my-choice.com/8884360 will access a test page - graphic 
> (clock).  When,
> > if ever, did the browsers/URL data access world change to the point where
> > no htm or html is required after the server file?  Perhaps it has always
> > been this way and I simply assumed htm or html was required for proper 
> file
> > access.  Any feedback will be quite helpful.  Incidentally, I sent the
> > my-choice link to about 60 people (all browser, OSs, and even AOL folks)
> > and all replied stating they could access the clock via my test page.
> >

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