[gopher] Re: mime types

[Paul Lindner <lindner@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 01:30:41PM -0000, Robert Hahn wrote:
> 
> 
> Paul Lindner wrote:
> > 
> > Perhaps when I finish the apache 2.0 gopher server I can see about
> > hitching these two together..


> Paul, I don't know if you've done this already, but can you tell us
> a bit more about this project?  What I'm really curious about is the
> thinking behind creating a gopher plugin vs. using a standalone
> server.  What advantages do you see in such a design?  Please correct
> my impression: it seems like you're attaching a helium filled balloon
> to a rock - not in terms of speed concerns, but in terms of
> infrastructure.

Well, the apache code base is just much better and faster than the UMN
gopherd code.  It does pre-forking. It has a nice
chain-of-responsibility design pattern for each of the phases.  Apache
also does a good job of mapping file types, authentication, logging
and all that.

With Apache 2.0 you can easily plug in to the connection phase.  This
allows one to parse the incoming gopher request and pass control back
to the other phases.

> I just had a wacky thought - unrelated to the previous
> paragraph. Many of you might have heard that some people have
> compiled a web server into the Linux kernel for some impressive
> speed gains... I wonder what compiling gopher into the linux kernel
> would be like. :) Anyone trying that? Betcha that would make
> slashdot... :) A replacement for NFS, perhaps? hmm...  -rh

That would be TUX..  TUX is great, and it already supports http and
ftp, so I guess it wouldn't be a stretch to support gopher..

-- 
Paul Lindner    lindner@xxxxxxxxx   ||||| | | | |  |  |  |   |   |

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