MSmsla·Nov 15, 2024
> HTTP stands for Hypertext transfer protocol. The whole thing was predicated on sending HTML documents and couldn't originally send anything else.
OK, HTTP/0.9 was apparently like that. By HTTP/1.0 (1996) they'd learned better, and that was the growth phase:
https://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/1.0/spec.html
> MIME is a hack to add attachments to email that was later also hacked into HTTP so you could send add "attachments" to a protocol designed only to transfer hypertext, it's a kludge added in version 1.1.
Like how Gopher got kludged to add other item types? All useful protocols evolve, and Gopher is no exception.
https://github.com/gopher-protocol/gopher-plus/blob/main/gop...
> Gopher's main difference with the web was that its linking was directory-based with directory tree documents rather than embedded hyperlinks. This was inferior,
Read the rest
strictly speaking since you can easily make a directory HTML document on the web, but you could also cross-link.
Yes, that's true.
> I'm sure that would have been changed though, along with additional file-types or whatever had Gopher succeeded. The web's success over Gopher was never down to technical details.
Also true, and that New Gopher is now called Gemini.
https://geminiprotocol.net/
It also defines a hypertext document format (Gemtext) but it allows HTML-style free linking and (depending on client) inline images, although that's not really what the Gemini users want. Again, this is more social than technical, and more self-consciously social because it's a deliberate reaction to existing paradigms: The Web as it is now (too invasive, too busy) and Gopher as it is now (a moribund retrocomputing exercise that can't realistically incorporate new technologies or serve new goals).
Speaking of clients:
https://gmi.skyjake.fi/lagrange/
https://thelambdalab.xyz/elpher/
Both do Gemini and Gopher.