Gemini thoughts (was Re: Gopher Desktop Client)

Changing the title as this is a new topic really from the original email...

On 12-Mar-2021 01:29, Ivan J. wrote:
> IMHO, Gemini is just a Frankenstein protocol with no real usecase. You 
> can either use HTTP or use Gopher. It goes against basic philosophy to 
> invent something like Gemini.
IMO Gemini tries to plough its own furrow. Yes it is informed by Gopher 
and HTTP (more so gopher). But there are a couple of definitive use 
cases why you might use it instead of gopher, including:

  - TLS is native to the protocol
  - standard media types
  - unicode
  - easier to write for "normal" authors (not tech folks like us)
  - better support for accessibility IMO - by labelling preformatted 
text and ascii art (not possible in gopher without using a link)

why you might use it instead of http, well, where do I start?

But gopher and http are obviously the incumbents.

I like and very much respect Gopher (and I wrote a client for gopher), 
but I like Gemini too, for the use cases above. If you are into retro 
computing, I think gopher is probably best for now, although there is 
some discussion of a variant of gemini without TLS called mercury that 
is being explored.

  - Luke