Comment by ☀️ sbr
@clseibold I am a fan of sqlc, get strong types and the flexibility to write your own queries
— https://github.com/sqlc-dev/sqlc
And go-migrate, for migrations
— https://github.com/golang-migrate/migrate
2025-07-01 · 10 months ago
21 Later Comments ↓
🚀 jsreed5 · 2025-07-01 at 14:55:
@meidam It looks like I made my capsule certificate incorrectly, and that's causing the Amfora issue. I put two DNS entries (jsreed5.org and gemini.jsreed5.org) as CNs in the cert; what I shold have done instead, it appears, is put jsreed5.org as the CN and put both DNS entires as SANs. (If that's incorrect, someone please let me know!) Unfortunately, fixing it requires deploying a new cert to the server, which will require some coordination and an announcement ahead of time.
🚀 clarahd · 2025-07-01 at 17:11:
Not a career counsellor, but I remember reading about a particular personality type that combined both "tech" and "social" aspects. You don't sound like you get as much reward out of gizmos as some others, despite being advanced technically.
If I recall correctly, this somewhat rare personality type is rewarded by a field where you personally help people... with tech!
— https://dowhatyouarebook.com
@jsreed5 You can generate a new cert with the existing key and browsers should be fine with it. I tested with Lagrange and amfora.
I just wrote up how I did this as I have a similar multiple domain on single cert setup
— 8by3.net/~sbr/others/tech/2025-07-01.new-cert-old-key.gmi
🦀 Proton · 2025-07-01 at 18:27:
Excellent posts guy, I really enjoyed reading your complaints.
For me the problem with Gemini is it's fundamentally a subset of http, so while I love Lagrange and the lack of JS and ads, it doesn't add anything to the web. Also I use edbrowse which solves all those problems with http.
The other problem is the political "vibe" of people here is basically conservative tech liberal, which, while nice and civilized is not giving the spark that I am looking for in a community. People might not think this matters but to me it's critical. In other words, "a social network of boring technology small talk posts" is not it.
I'm interested to hear your interest in Goodreads. I am also interested in that kind of thing and I've been working on a weird semi-goodreads webapp type thing for a while (http though) which I'm eventually going to finish. It's based on GPG though (LOL) not Gemini.
That brings me to my last point, which is I am actually focused on another tech (not Gemini) that is a lot more different and unique - so very much NOT an http subset. Maybe a substitute. That's where my attention is and why I am not that interested in building on Gemini. However they could be combined which might be cool.
I'm just graffitiing my thoughts here on your thread because I think people don't post enough thoughtful, critical stuff on the web OR gemini since the 2010s. It's a big problem. Keep it up.
Regarding SQL I write it by hand and use chatgpt for debugging. I do not use ORM. I'm also not a developer IRL though.
👻 darkghost · 2025-07-01 at 21:11:
I might add that the way we use things like the web has changed dramatically. We are bombarded with tricks to drive "engagement" or keep us on a platform. Gemini doesn't do this and it is designed specifically not to. Newbies get "bored" because there are no hooks trying to keep you on and consuming content for most of your day. It is like the old web of the late 90s and early 00s. There wasn't much excuse to spend hours and hours every day on the web. It was the dialup model, transactional. Gemini feels this way. IRC kept me engaged for hours. And plenty of coding did as well. The web? I would read the news, maybe a bit of research, done. 20 minutes tops every day.
🚀 stack · 2025-07-01 at 21:52:
I've had a few thoughts for games and simple services, but likewise, feel tired and bored thinking about actually doing it. Will it bring me or others joy? Somehow, it does not seem like it. Should these things exist? I don't know if it's worth it or if it just adds noise and entropic heat to the system for no reason.
In the beginning it seemed like a good idea to have this and that in Gemini. Now I am kind of happy _not_ to have it...
My use of Gemini is minimal -- a few games, reading a few posts from Antenna, and checking in here on BBS. That's good enough for me, and yes, I am pretty boring these days.
🦂 zzo38 · 2025-07-02 at 00:42:
For me the problem with Gemini is it's fundamentally a subset of http
@Proton I had seen this mentioned by someone else as well (who wrote that a replacement for WWW should not be a subset and should not be compatible), although I cannot find the article now. However, Gopher (especially Gopher+), Scorpion, and Scroll all do go beyond WWW in some ways, while also deliberately being more limited in some ways. But, some of the limitations can also have other benefits, e.g. save power and RAM and disk space, guarantee that some things are not done (enabling to take advantage of them, e.g. to improve accessibility and interoperability, etc), and others.
I think people don't post enough thoughtful, critical stuff on the web OR gemini since the 2010s. It's a big problem
OK, but there is a few things (although probably not enough, like you said). There is more than "the web and gemini", including e.g. Usenet, Gopher, etc. There is also private communications (IRC, email, etc) where they may discuss many things but are not published (although that does not necessarily mean that they are a good quality either, but some might be). And, some stuff which is not accessible from the internet, or is not compatible with your computer, or requires payment, or other problems.
🚀 clseibold [OP/mod, 🛂] · 2025-07-02 at 01:27:
Wow, all of these notifications are getting very overwhelming for me now, lol, so I'm just going to try to pick which ones I think are most important to respond to, and hope that's alright.
@darkghost I do understand why you are saying this, but I don't think it's as simple as that. Gemini should be used as a tool. That's how I want to use it. Right now, however, it cannot be used as a tool because there aren't many tools on here. So that's what I'm trying to do, make a bunch of tools for Gemini.
For example, I still have to use the web to search for solutions to programming problems and questions, because Gemini doesn't have what I need. And yet Gemini is supposed to be the perfect place for this type of content! How do I construct a WITH CTE clause in SQL? The answer isn't in Gemini, but it should be!
The golang documentation capsule (gemini://godocs.io) went down, unfortunately, so now that needs to be replaced. But in the meantime, it has reduced programming documentation that you can find on Gemini.
I don't want Gemini to be tiktok, I want it to be a tool that can carry out our most important tasks. Media tracking and reviews? That would be a pretty great tool in gemini. Programming documentation? Yes. Q&A? Definitely, although hopefully answered by experts in their fields. Learning materials? Yep.
The problem for me is there are not enough *tools* in Gemini that I have to now search out the ad-filled obnoxiously slow web to do anything I need.
Media proxies are part of these tools. While we don't want a tiktok that manipulates people's attention, we still want to allow people to take an entertainment break, and for that, we need the tools to allow people to select a piece of media they want to engage in and engage in it.
To me, there are 3 components to a network like Gemini: social, informational, and entertainment. Gemini can easily meet all 3 if it wants, and one is not more important than the others, imo, becauese it's always good to have diverse content on a network.
🚀 clseibold [OP/mod, 🛂] · 2025-07-02 at 01:53:
@Proton Well, a big part of Gemini's start was the whole gemlog stuff. It came from gopher, and when people joined, that's what they got on board with. The text format was built around doing what you need for gemlogs, our aggregators were built for sharing and discovering gemlogs, gemsub feeds were made for subscribing to gemlogs, and before that we literally had atom feeds.
So I think it just makes sense to have book review gemlogs, which is what goodreads is. Q&A gemlogs? Yeah, that's AuraGem Ask! You can submit a URL to a gemlog on AuraGem Ask, or if you don't have your own capsule, you can write it right on the Ask capsule.
The main thing I'm trying to solve is to entice diversification in gemlog content. If people see others asking questions about various topics over on AuraGem Ask, they might be more inclined to write a gemlog post answering it. If people see a book review, they might read that book, and then post their own review.
Also, I want the ability to look up *information* about books too. Again, another tool that Gemini would be great at. So, a Goodreads alternative serves all three components of a network: social, informational, and entertainment.
About that AuraGem Ask feature, where you can just post a link to your gemlog as an answer: to me this is an *essential* feature of these types of capsules because it allows AuraGem Ask to interact with our existing gemlog ecosystem. It doesn't force people to move their content to a centralized system, rather it acts as *another form of aggregator*, an aggregator/directory where you post your links directly to the category (and question) that the gemlog belongs under. ( @meidam )
🚀 clseibold [OP/mod, 🛂] · 2025-07-02 at 02:49:
@sbr You suggested that you could help me with some projects?
One of the things I would like help with is AuraRepo, if you are ever interested in that. It's a git interface for gemini, but the main thing I have left is I want to implement a wiki system within git that uses Titan. The wiki will be in a special wiki branch of the git repo.
The main stopping point right now is the go-git library doesn't have multiple worktree support, so either we have to implement that and submit a PR (this PR already started the work: https://github.com/go-git/go-git/pull/396), or we need a workaround.
Right now, these wikis are part of a repository, but once this is done, it could be generalized so that people can create wikis without all the other repository features; so that the wiki effectively becomes the main interface, even though it's backed by a git repo.
If you're not interested in this, then that's fine.
@clseibold Ill take a look today on my lunch break, are you on a slightly more dynamic comms like IRC? I loiter on libera chat if you want to ping me a message, there is a #gemini channel we could use which is otherwise rather dead.
🚀 clseibold [OP/mod, 🛂] · 2025-07-02 at 08:54:
@sbr Okay, I'll get on #gemini.
After reading the thread and the related articles I wrote a little post concerning the topic.
— I will stay on the small web
☯️ dragfyre · 2025-07-17 at 02:09:
so we getting on irc?
edit: added my own two cents on m.pub.
👾 jecxjo · 2025-07-17 at 18:53:
After reading this huge thread I think we are all missing one massive talking point. What is going on here is THE problem with FLOSS development. Unless there is something pushing for further development no one does it. This is why we see so many clones of other software, people wanting their own tweaked version and then the project dies a few months or years later. I'd be amazed if even 30% of Github's repos was still maintained.
What can we do to get a community not only interested in a given project, but keep them interested. I love the GoodReads idea, I use BookWyrm and I keep a gmi page for my books. But honestly I can't see myself indefinitely working on a project even if I use it.
👻 darkghost · 2025-07-17 at 19:49:
Development isn't just the creation of a piece of software. It is also maintenance. Someone needs to do the unsexy maintenance, keeping up with the libraries used and making sure it doesn't break. Interest will wane or new features will be added. I went through the Gemini servers a while back thinking of starting a capsule. A lot of them have multiple year old repos that haven't seen any action since the 2021 era. I couldn't be sure they would compile since they might need a 4 year old lib to work.
👾 jecxjo · 2025-07-17 at 20:03:
I know this is a hot take and totally against the free and open concept of the code we write...
But would it make sense to promote a community VCS, and push for people to work on an existing project over making your own? I know everyone wants to make their own stuff but I think we need to find a way to make community projects ACTUALLY BE community projects.
🦂 zzo38 · 2025-07-17 at 20:48:
Some software will be completed enough that it is not necessary to add any new features, although you may still intend to correct bugs (unless it is good enough already), to port the software (unless it is emulated), improve the documentation, etc.
You can contribute to existing software as well as writing your own software. Sometimes it is something new and not only clones of existing software, but even clones of existing software can be made improved in many ways compared with the original software (e.g. my "Free Hero Mesh" software is a clone of Everett Kaser's "MESH:Hero" software). Sometimes, existing FOSS might be too different than what you wanted to do that the existing software cannot easily be changed to do what you wanted it to do (or to not do something that you want it to not do).
👾 jecxjo · 2025-07-17 at 21:02:
@zzo38 You are exactly right in why project death and splintering happens.
That doesn't really fix the issue though. We are now at the 5+ year mark for the protocol which means that many clients, servers and services are going to be hitting end of life on LTS versions of the libraries they use. Language version updates means you can't build half of the clients I'm seeing out there without having to first install an older version of Go or C# or Rust.
When I go looking at software if I see there hasn't been any files updated within 2 years I skip it. I know that the build system alone is going to be out of date. And I know that I too am not keeping up with anything old I wrote.
🦂 zzo38 · 2025-07-17 at 21:13:
I have used software older than 2 years (and much more than that). The build system alone will not necessarily be out of date; it depends how the software is written and what build system it uses. Some programs are written that they can last much longer than that, especially if there are not many external dependencies.
👾 jecxjo · 2025-07-17 at 21:25:
Yes I was being slightly alarmist for a point.
It's not about how long the project has been around. It's that simply keeping up with security updates, keeping in step with latest language and build systems, etc show that most people stop looking at their own projects after its "good enough." This is fine in many cases.
But what this also means is that people stop looking at their bug reporting and feature requests. They stop putting in the effort. Most are probably burnt out which is natural. Others only like flashy new things. But if the complaint in this thread is that we need more people active, we need to start figuring out how to deal with burnout. How do we get less one person projects?
Original Post
Bored and Exhausted — Not gonna lie, I've done so much stuff with Gemini: a search engine, Q&A site, a music library service and radio, youtube and twitch proxies, misfin geminimail, AuraRepo, a 25% finished MMO game, a Sefaria proxy, a whole server suite, my own GUI browser, but, y'all, I am so freaking bored and exhausted at the same time. None of what I've made is exciting anymore. I had plans on finishing Biomebound, finishing up my server suite software (SIS), and then moving on to a Wiki...