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Gemini is fantastic. For anyone interested in experimenting with it without setting up a server, I've been working on a simple Gemini site builder that works ov

Gemini is fantastic. For anyone interested in experimenting with it without setting up a server, I've been working on a simple Gemini site builder that works over HTTP and serves the content via Gemini and HTTP proxy: https://flounder.online/ https://flounder.online/ In my view, Gemini's bare-bones text format is its killer feature. Non-technical users have been able to easily write Gemtext based on a few examples and a bit of experimentation. This gets users away from WSIWYG without forcing them to learn something as complex as HTML. And unlike Markdown, it is clearly-specified, universal, and doesn't compile to anything else. Many people criticize Gemini for lacking this or that feature, and being basically useless for "practical" applications. I wrote an blog post about this: https://alex.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-01-08-useless.gmi https://alex.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-01-08-useless.gmi

mattowen_uk 6y ago
Beyond using TLS for the connections, I struggle to understand what Gemini offers over Gopher. Gopher's document type is bare bones text also. Gopher is an open standard also. There's many clients and servers for many platforms, and it's easy to implement. I've been subscribed to the Gemini mailing list for a while now, and browse the conversations on it (it's very active), and I'm still yet to be convinced it's a viable alternative to the web that will gain any traction outside of it's core hobbyist user base.
- alexwennerberg 6y ago
  I don't come to Gemini from the Gopher community, but the advantages are listed in section 2.2 of the FAQ: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html
h_anna_h 6y ago
> No other "alt web" technology approaches the internet with such extreme and radical skepticism Except hypercore/dat, ipfs, freenet, tor, i2p, gnunet, ...
- alexwennerberg 6y ago
  I deleted that part of my comment because it wasn't my main point
krapp 6y ago
>This gets users away from WSIWYG without forcing them to learn something as complex as HTML. To be fair, though, tons of non-technical users were able to handle HTML in the old days. It's not that complicated.

mattowen_uk 6y ago

Beyond using TLS for the connections, I struggle to understand what Gemini offers over Gopher. Gopher's document type is bare bones text also. Gopher is an open standard also. There's many clients and servers for many platforms, and it's easy to implement. I've been subscribed to the Gemini mailing list for a while now, and browse the conversations on it (it's very active), and I'm still yet to be convinced it's a viable alternative to the web that will gain any traction outside of it's core hobbyist user base.

alexwennerberg 6y ago
I don't come to Gemini from the Gopher community, but the advantages are listed in section 2.2 of the FAQ: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html

h_anna_h 6y ago

> No other "alt web" technology approaches the internet with such extreme and radical skepticism Except hypercore/dat, ipfs, freenet, tor, i2p, gnunet, ...

alexwennerberg 6y ago
I deleted that part of my comment because it wasn't my main point

krapp 6y ago

>This gets users away from WSIWYG without forcing them to learn something as complex as HTML. To be fair, though, tons of non-technical users were able to handle HTML in the old days. It's not that complicated.