Twitter to eliminate their hashbang (#!) URLs

[2012-02-21] app urls, browser, dev, twitter, webdev, computers
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In a conversation triggered by Tim Haines, Twitter front end engineer Dan Webb refers to his article “It's About The Hashbangs” on the problems of using #! URLs in JavaScript. He then goes on to confirm:
@danwrong:
plus, now I'm in charge of undoing twitters hashbang URLs I can confirm that all the issues in that article are very real.
@timhaines:
x months from now (when your project completes) Twitter will no longer use hashbangs?
@danwrong:
correct. All gone. It was a mistake for several reasons. PushState or bust.
@timhaines:
You're going to revert to page refreshes if the browser doesn't support PushState? Adding PushState support progressively?
@danwrong:
yep.
The hashbang URLs are a nuisance. For example: there are always two versions of each URL, e.g.:
    https://twitter.com/rauschma/status/171801699395178497
    https://twitter.com/#!/rauschma/status/171801699395178497
If JavaScript is enabled then the former version is rewritten to the latter version after the page has loaded. Traditionally, hashbang URLs were the only way of dynamically updating a URL to reflect the current application state. But with widespread support for pushState [1] that changed a while ago. You now can arbitrarily change a URL, as long as the domain stays the same.

Related reading:

  1. The pushState() method” on MDN