*
 * Neither of the built-in URL models offer direct access to path segments or query parameters.
 * Manually using `StringBuilder` to assemble these components is cumbersome: do '+' characters get
 * silently replaced with spaces? If a query parameter contains a '&', does that get escaped?
 * By offering methods to read and write individual query parameters directly, application
 * developers are saved from the hassles of encoding and decoding.