The W3C Technical Architecture Group has published a note on Usage Patterns For Client-Side URI parameters:
Designers of URIs have traditionally used
?to encode server-side parameters. At its inception, the Web also introduced fragment identifiers (preceded by#) as a means of addressing specific locations in a document. As highly interactive applications get built using Web parts (HTML, CSS and JavaScript component resources that are themselves Web addressible — see [tvr-cacm2009], there is an increasing need for encoding interaction state as part of the URI. The Web is beginning to discover and codify design patterns based on fragment identifiers for many of these use cases.This draft finding is being prepared in response to TAG issue #60 . This document explores the issues that arise in this context, and attempts to define best practices that help:
Create URIs for intermediate pages in a Web application so that the back button does the right thing
Enable clients to address into specific points in a stream of content, e.g., video.
The goal of this finding is to initially collect the various usage scenarios that are leading to innovative uses of client-side URI parameters, along with the solutions that have been developed by the Web community. When this exercise is complete, this finding will conclude by ensuring that these design patterns are mutually compatible. If some of these usage patterns are identified as being in conflict, we will recommend best practices that help side-step such conflicts. We encourage the wider Web community to point us at emerging usage scenarios and design patterns so that we maximize our chances of arriving at a final finding that helps move forward the architecture of the Web in a self-consistent manner.
