Re: [gopher] Updated Gopher RFC

[zack mayson <zmayson46@googlemail.com>]

On 8 May 2012 17:04, Damien Carol <damien.carol@gmail.com> wrote:

Despite Cameron opinion, have more and more specific types IS NOT THE SOLUTION.

See www, there have mime-type for that and it's a really really big mess.
No ? See that and cry => http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/index.html

If I see my crawler stats I can see that :
90% of gopherspace is 0 Text or 1 Menu elements...
7 % is Image generic type.
0,3 % is h URL: magic type

Other type are < 0,2%.

You see what I want to show ?

I think a more usefull thing will be to complete the RFC.
I mean tell WHAT CLIENT SHOULD DO FOR ALL TYPES.

For example give an algorithm to fix how client get ressources :

PROTOCOL ITSELF
Type	Description	What CLIENT MUST DO ?
0	Short text, client can render it directly at screen because it's small data	Keep the menu and render the text directly
1	Menu the most important	Request the menu and analyse it
		if it's a menu with '3' error node => show error message to the client
		if not, then render the menu in new window
7	Index / Programs	Same as menu BUT the client send selector + TAB + something
DATA NODES
Type	Description	What CLIENT MUST DO ?
5	Binary crap	Download and analyse it
all others	Binary crap	if it's a menu with '3' error node => show error message to the client
		If not the brower do what it want.
		For example some browsers render images or redirect to other programs
EXTERNAL
Type	Description	What CLIENT MUST DO ?
h	external URL	Do what to do with "URL:"
KEEP THIS FOR HISTORICAL REASON
Type	Description	What CLIENT MUST DO ?
2	CSO phone-book server	Manage this nodes like h
8	Telnet session	Manage this nodes like h
T	tn3270 session	Manage this nodes like h

To be more constructive I think the good solution will be to have generic types.

My proposal :

Old one	My Proposal	Name	Description
1	1	MENU	Menu
0	0	TEXT	Small text file, render directly in browser in easy way
3	3	ERROR	Tell client that result is KO
7	7	INDEX / PROGRAMS	You now it
9	9	BINARY	Binary, generic one
5	5	ARCHIVE	Binary but check it as ARCHIVE (zip, rar, etc…)
g, P, I	I	Image File	Binary but check it as IMAGE (JPG, GIF, BMP, etc…)
;	V	Video File	Binary but check it as VIDEO (AVI, MKV, etc….)
s	A	Audio File	Binary but check it as AUDIO (WAV, mp3, etc…)
d	D	Document Text File	Binary but check it as TEXT (Plain, Word, ODF, etc…)
h	E	EXTERNAL URL	Check the selector for "URL:"

Sounds a bit like this April fool from the org-mode list:

 Org-mode and taskpaper

and the follow-up to it:
Org-mode versus Taskpaper - now for real

(The point of the last one is that it is better for the user to be able to 'climb' in complexity rather than stuck at simplicity).

Anyway, in my view it is better to generalize for formats that don't have their own types already (i.e. If a new image format pops up you add type "IMG" and give the client the file's  extension; if the client decides it can't understand it, it shows error to the user explaining why).

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