What happens when the author's website goes down? I'm guessing his job is not really to maintain an URL shortener website, so he probably won't be dedicated to its stability and reliability. Are there URL shorteners that let you edit the URL? That's probably what he needs...
He really needs to print both the actual URL and the shortened tag. This way, is his site goes down, the link is still legit, yet if the link changes, his redirect is still active. If both sites go down, well there's no solution to that.
Actually the shortened tag is a good idea. It would make books more readable. And he could publish a list at the end of the book with the actual URLs (think of it as site version 1).
He could even call it an "index".
Honestly, I've been at a loss to understand the sudden wave of concern about link rot. In this case, the concern is over URLs published in a book on Python programming. Ten years from now, is this book going to be relevant enough that we'll really have an urgent need for all the online documents it references?
And don't even get me started on people who think it's important to preserve everything ever posted to Twitter...
Rather than put URLs in books, I think it's better to put URLs them alongside them. You can always make updates, and you can save the paper, ink and oil you would have spent printing and shipping a bibliography through the distribution channel.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 91.6 ms ] threadOnce you've done this, no URL shortening systems are needed.
The book might keep a website up for the next 1-5 years but after that I doubt the author or publisher will have much interest in keeping it up.
I'd provide both the short URL and the current full URL to increase the reader's chances of finding the resource.
And don't even get me started on people who think it's important to preserve everything ever posted to Twitter...
Press Release: http://www.thinkcomputer.com/corporate/news/pressreleases.ht...
Example: http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/resources.html