Gemini thoughts (was Re: Gopher Desktop Client)
Changing the title as this is a new topic really from the original email...
On 12-Mar-2021 01:29, Ivan J. wrote:
IMHO, Gemini is just a Frankenstein protocol with no real usecase. You
can either use HTTP or use Gopher. It goes against basic philosophy to
invent something like Gemini.
IMO Gemini tries to plough its own furrow. Yes it is informed by Gopher
and HTTP (more so gopher). But there are a couple of definitive use
cases why you might use it instead of gopher, including:
- TLS is native to the protocol
- standard media types
- unicode
- easier to write for "normal" authors (not tech folks like us)
- better support for accessibility IMO - by labelling preformatted
text and ascii art (not possible in gopher without using a link)
why you might use it instead of http, well, where do I start?
But gopher and http are obviously the incumbents.
I like and very much respect Gopher (and I wrote a client for gopher),
but I like Gemini too, for the use cases above. If you are into retro
computing, I think gopher is probably best for now, although there is
some discussion of a variant of gemini without TLS called mercury that
is being explored.
- Luke
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