[mcav]

PSA: The best way to delimit URLs is to enclose them with angle brackets (< and >) as per < http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt >.

However, like many flaws with HN's underdeveloped software, you can't actually do that on HN because the parser includes the trailing > in the URL. So your best bet here is with whitespace.

[leoedin]

I'd argue that the world has moved on since 1998. We live in a world full of URL parsers of various abilities, and doggedly enclosing URLs in angle brackets because of a memo written so long ago it also references gopher seems stubborn to no obvious gain. Given the state of the modern internet, I definitely wouldn't consider angle brackets to be the best way to delimit URLs.

[smrtinsert]

And yet hashtags exist and lisp is cycling back yet again. I don't know if there's a convention, might as well re-explore it.

[dangayle]

I think most of us are more used to delimiting urls using [markdown syntax](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax)

[dchest]

Which is

   <http://www.example.com>

http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#autolink

[dangayle]

Huh. I never noticed that. Thanks

[logn]

I just make sure there's whitespace before and after links (like this, http://example.com )