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If you're going to be constrained to a tiny subset of servers running gopher, you can constrain yourself to web servers catering to old clients. Gopher adds not
by giantrobot 2y ago
If you're going to be constrained to a tiny subset of servers running gopher, you can constrain yourself to web servers catering to old clients. Gopher adds nothing there, it's just a less capable protocol than HTTP.
I'm not opposed to someone running a gopher server for fun. I don't hate the protocol. There's just a really strange meme that gopher somehow facilitates something the Web does not. If you want a hierarchy of directories with documents, the web can do that and be used by the software everyone already has in their pocket.
- immibis 2y agoI think the advantage for them is having a guarantee. If it's Gopher, then it works. No trial and error needed.
- chongli 2y agoI think the draw of gopher is that one hundred percent of gopher servers work on old clients. Whereas with http you just don’t know. A website that works fine on an old browser can link to a website that doesn’t. That makes the whole thing feel broken. So the desire for gopher is the desire for something reliable, consistent, self-contained, and separate from the web.