Re: [gopher] Question
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 4:29 PM, NN NN <aepedia@yandex.ru> wrote:
> For what reasons is Gopher needed if there are FTP and HTTP?
On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 11:07 PM, NN NN <aepedia@yandex.ru> wrote:
> So, I heard a lot of beatiful words about Gopher and its advantages. But
> there is one small "but". Somehow or other, but in spite of all
> advanteges of Gopher, most people prefer to use HTTP-FTP bunch. Why?
Your original question could be paraphrased in a more historically-accurate
way as: Why is HTTP needed if there already are FTP and Gopher available?
And some Web archaeology gives us this:
http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/Protocols/WhyHTTP.html
http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/Protocols/RelevantProtocols.html
I don't think there ever was any real need for HTTP from the technical
point of view. Reading the list of requirements for the then-new HTTP
protocol I conclude that WorldWideWeb could have used Gopher as both
protocols had similar functionality, were extremely simple and either
of them could be easily used in place of another. Yet, because Gopher
is hierarchical and hypertext was supposed to have only loosely defined
structure, perhaps it was natural and easier to make a new protocol
for it.
So I think that popularity of HTTP doesn't stem from any technical
advantage of the protocol over Gopher but rather is just a by-product
of the success of the World Wide Web and its non-hierarchical model of
organizing information. Back when there still was some information
involved besides cat videos, that is ;)
-k
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