Comment by 🚀 lars_the_bear
Gopher has been around for decades. It's essentially dead, and people who still use it have nothing to prove.
Gemini, or the other hand, is new(-ish). Many people who use it see themselves as agents or change, with an agenda.
I''m not surprised they're different.
Mar 12 · 8 weeks ago
5 Later Comments ↓
Are you guys kidding about the Gemini spec?
It is a joke of a spec!
I love Gemini, but the spec... There are maybe 5 gemtext features available as line types, but each one is signaled in a completely different and silly way!
You have one, two, and three character tags. Some require a soace after, some don't. And then there is the container preformatted tag that needs to be closed.
For such a tiny spec, it is alnost inconceivable how much was poorly described, omitted, or a bad idea.
I often thought of it as a prank, literally.
🚀 lars_the_bear · Mar 12 at 16:57:
@stack : you're perhaps referring to the Gemtext specification, rather than the protocol specification? Gemtext can get off anywhere it likes, but I thought the base protocol was pretty sound.
Apart from the dependence on TLS. But we have Spartan, I guess, if we don't like that.
I am largely kidding...
Gemtext is clearly a part of the overall Gemini spec. But if not mistaken, I still see issues coming up with how to interpret the protocol spec. And I think the initial spec had to be reworked to make more sense, right?
Again, Gemini is pretty much all the Internet I use, and I am a proponent.
🛸 bluesman [OP] · Mar 12 at 20:07:
I've been largely kidding this whole time. Both protocols are equally hilarious (at times).
🚀 lars_the_bear · Mar 13 at 08:19:
Writing a watertight specification is difficult, unless you resort to some kind of mathematical formulation, and then nobody else will understand it.
Because the developer base for Gemini stuff is so small, I do worry that we'll end up with a kind of de-facto spec, that's mostly defined by the behaviour of existing code. I'm not saying that's happening, only that it could.
Original Post
Is Gemini Too Earnest? — I've been spending a lot of time testing in gopherspace and it pains me to say it but I think Gopher may have Gemini beat when it comes to comedy. [gopher link] Bitreich Cookbook [gopher link] Dad Joke [gopher link] Do I Have Internet? I've worked with both protocols and in my professional opinion, there's no technical reason Gemini needs to be so earnest. (TLS can be a pain but this is ridiculous). Don't even get me started on Nex.