Your URL Is Your State

Couple of weeks ago when I was publishing The Hidden Cost of URL Design I needed to add SQL syntax highlighting. I headed to PrismJS website trying to remember if it should be added as a plugin or what. I was overwhelmed with the amount of options in the download page so I headed back to my code. I checked the file for PrismJS and at the top of the file, I found a comment containing a URL: /* https://prismjs.com/download.html#themes=prism&languages=markup+css+clike+javascript+bash+css-extras+markdown+scss+sql&plugins=line-highlight+line-numbers+autolinker */ I had completely forgotten about this. I clicked the URL, and it was the PrismJS download page with every checkbox, dropdown, and option pre-selected to match my exact configuration. Themes chosen. Languages selected. Plugins enabled. Everything, perfectly reconstructed from that single URL. It was one of those moments where something you once knew suddenly clicks again with fresh significance. Here was a URL doing far more than…