Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Six Years of Gemini

geminiprotocol.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 169 posts

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#31

Post by rglullis »

bayindirh wrote: post #25
sneak wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can achieve that on HTTP with a browser extension or customized browser that checks for certain tags in the page, or disables certain features altogether. It isn’t the transport’s fault.

With all respect, this viewpoint rivals the infamous Dropbox comment.

Problem: you are looking for a way to get rid of the annoying issues of the modern www. What is the solution that solves this with the least amount of work?

A) Develop a whole new transport protocol that does less than HTTP, develop client applications that use this protocol, convince a sufficient number of people to use this protocol, at least to the point where the majority of your activity happens there?

or

B) Install a handful of browser extensions that block ads and other nuisances on the modern www, and have it working right away?

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#32

Post by uamgeoalsk »

rcarmo wrote: post #26

I wrote a server for it a while back (am still running it someplace behind a CF tunnel) but I’ve never really found either the community or the protocol were taking off: https://github.com/rcarmo/aiogemini A key issue with the ecosystem (not the protocol) as far as I’m concerned is that it would have been stupendously better to settle on Markdown (even a simplified form) for content creation. The rest is OK, I guess,…

Being able to parse gemtext line by line with almost no context is a big win for simplicity - you can't really do that with markdown.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#33

Post by NoboruWataya »

I'll add my name to the list of people who like the idea and were very curious about it when they first heard about it but now don't think about it as much.

It's very fun to develop for. The simplicity of the protocol means that writing a server, client or "web app" (equivalent) is a weekend project. So there is a proliferation of software for it but that doesn't necessarily translate into content.

There is content, though. My favourite aggregator is gemini://warmedal.se/~antenna/ and I do still drop by there regularly enough to have a browse. It's no longer all meta content which is good (people used to just use Geminispace to write about Gemini). It's still quite tech/FOSS focused, unsurprisingly.

I agree with the other comments that are saying that a simple markdown would have been better than gemtext.

Whenever Gemini gets mentioned on HN there are a lot of commenters who seem to have an issue with the "views" or "values" of some people within the community. They never go into detail. I can honestly say I'm not sure what the issue is. As a very middle-of-the-road centrist I have never had much of an issue with the content I find on Gemini. Sure, you had a few interesting "characters" on the mailing list (back when it existed) but they were a minority and it was nothing you don't also find on the web. I guess people there tend to be more dogmatic about sticking to FOSS and keeping the internet non-corporate, which can rub people the wrong way, but again you can find similar views on the web (and IMO it makes for interesting discussions even if I don't agree with the dogmatism).

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#34

Post by snthpy »

dxyms wrote: post #14

For those that were thinking of the LLM and don’t know what this is, like me, their FAQ details what it is: https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq.gmi

Thanks. For this that don't want to have to click through:

Gemini is an application-level client-server internet protocol for the distribution of arbitrary files, with some special consideration for serving a lightweight hypertext format which facilitates linking between hosted files. Both the protocol and the format are deliberately limited in capabilities and scope, and the protocol is technically conservative, being built on mature, standardised, familiar, "off-the-shelf" technologies like URIs, MIME media types and TLS. Simplicity and finite scope are very intentional design decisions motivated by placing a high priority on user autonomy, user privacy, ease of implementation in diverse computing environments, and defensive non-extensibility. In short, it is something like a radically stripped down web stack. See section 4 of this FAQ document for questions relating to the design of Gemini.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#35

Post by snvzz »

This is just somebody's "finished" pet protocol (author did not allow anybody to give input). Narcissism we should not enable.

I will stick to gopher, as it is mature and much friendlier to low spec / retro machines.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#36

Post by uamgeoalsk »

snvzz wrote: post #35

This is just somebody's "finished" pet protocol (author did not allow anybody to give input). Narcissism we should not enable. I will stick to gopher, as it is mature and much friendlier to low spec / retro machines.

That's not narcissism - it's just someone building something they enjoy and sharing it with the world. Do you have the same objections to fiction writers or songwriters?

It's totally fine to prefer gopher for its maturity (I'd vehemently disagree, but that's for another day) or compatibility with retro machines, but framing someone else's creative project as a character flaw is just rude.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#37

Post by uamgeoalsk »

rglullis wrote: post #31
bayindirh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all respect, this viewpoint rivals the infamous Dropbox comment.

Problem: you are looking for a way to get rid of the annoying issues of the modern www. What is the solution that solves this with the least amount of work? A) Develop a whole new transport protocol that does less than HTTP, develop client applications that use this protocol, convince a sufficient number of people to use this protocol, at least to the point where the majority of your activity happens there? or B) Ins…

What's more fun? Definitely A.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#38

Post by mattkevan »

rglullis wrote: post #27
mattkevan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been exploring this problem for a while, and have been building something which I think might help solve it. I’m currently building a browser-based static site generator that produces clean, simple code. But it does more than that. Alongside the generated HTML, sites also publish their public configuration and source files, meaning they can be viewed in more than just a browser, for example in a CLI or accessibi…

That sounds a bit like the dat browser, no?

Not familiar with dat browser, but I'll take a look.

You can see an early beta of what I'm thinking about here: https://app.sparktype.org/#/sites

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#39

Post by rglullis »

uamgeoalsk wrote: post #37
rglullis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem: you are looking for a way to get rid of the annoying issues of the modern www. What is the solution that solves this with the least amount of work? A) Develop a whole new transport protocol that does less than HTTP, develop client applications that use this protocol, convince a sufficient number of people to use this protocol, at least to the point where the majority of your activity happens there? or B) Ins…

What's more fun? Definitely A.

You are not solving the stated problem. You are just admitting that working on a new protocol is a masturbatory, "the journey is the reward" kind of exercise.

Re: Six Years of Gemini

#40

Post by dimkr1 »

tvshtr wrote: post #8
martinrue wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made the first (and still popular) "social network" 4 years ago. Still going strong. More info: https://martinrue.com/station

it's this federated with anything?

https://github.com/dimkr/tootik is another Gemini social network that does federate over ActivityPub, and I've been thinking about developing a minimalist ActivityPub alternative (maybe using Gemini and Titan to replace HTTP GET and POST, respectively) that can coexist with ActivityPub support
Post reply on HN