Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
gopher.floodgap.com
Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
1–10 of 98 posts
Re: Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
#2Oh wow, that's a blast to the path. The author also wrote the bucktooth gopher server, and I implemented a new (semi-OO Perl) version of it that supported Gopher+.
There was always something very satisfying about Gopher, how it made explicit the structure and categories of the data, leaving the front-end to present it how it pleased.
Re: Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
#3It's not.
Re: Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
#4Gopher is way more friendly for the visually impaired than the modern web.
Re: Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
#5The web is like an operating system that you are locked into using. This prevents alternative operating systems such as Plan 9 from ever becoming useful, because building a web browser is such a monumental effort. Even if a decent web browser were built for Plan 9 it would defeat the purpose of using such an alternative OS because the web binds software to content.
The web has effectively killed innovation in operating systems. A clean and consistent system will be out of reach as long as this web app nonsense continues.
Re: Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
#6It's not.
I don't get why this is getting down voted.
I heard gopher before but never used it. I have two browsers (firefox and chrome) and gopher links failed on both. So I checked wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)#Native_Gophe...
And it is not supported in any of 4 most commonly used browser (except there is an add-on for firefox, you can write an add-on for anything anyway). (Edit: 5 actually, I forgot about Safari)
So yeah, Gohper is not relevant now.
Re: Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
#7The web is like an operating system that you are locked into using. This prevents alternative operating systems such as Plan 9 from ever becoming useful, because building a web browser is such a monumental effort. Even if a decent web browser were built for Plan 9 it would defeat the purpose of using such an alternative OS because the web binds software to content. The web has effectively killed innovation in operati…
I disagree, while writing a web browser would be significant work, it would likely be on the same order as writing an operating functional enough for people to actually want to use it. Porting a browser would likely take less work even (while still being a significant amount of work).
This page talks about what it takes to port webkit to another platform: http://blog.cranksoftware.com/webkit-porting-tips-the-good-t...
Re: Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
#8It's not.
The author didn't say "popular" he said "relevant"
The current state of software development has huge issues with needless complexity resulting from poorly chosen abstractions.
Gopher and IRC make it possible to use any client of your choosing, thus keeping innovation and improvements accessible to anyone with an idea.
Re: Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
#9The web is like an operating system that you are locked into using. This prevents alternative operating systems such as Plan 9 from ever becoming useful, because building a web browser is such a monumental effort. Even if a decent web browser were built for Plan 9 it would defeat the purpose of using such an alternative OS because the web binds software to content. The web has effectively killed innovation in operati…
I disagree, while writing a web browser would be significant work, it would likely be on the same order as writing an operating functional enough for people to actually want to use it. Porting a browser would likely take less work even (while still being a significant amount of work). This page talks about what it takes to port webkit to another platform: http://blog.cranksoftware.com/webkit-porting-tips-the-good-t..…
Sure you could port webkit to your new OS, but if all the software you use effectively exists only as web apps what would be the point?
Re: Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?
#10It's not.
I don't get why this is getting down voted. I heard gopher before but never used it. I have two browsers (firefox and chrome) and gopher links failed on both. So I checked wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)#Native_Gophe... And it is not supported in any of 4 most commonly used browser (except there is an add-on for firefox, you can write an add-on for anything anyway). (Edit: 5 actually, I for…
Relevancy is a measure of subjective scope. Things that are relevant to some might be irrelevant to others. Gopher might not be relevant to society as a whole but to a subset of hackers (hi!). Parent's comment is effortless snark so it deserves any downvote it acquires.