[gopher] Re: Where are we going?

["Trevor" <greendragon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>  For me, it's a
> window into a much simpler and efficient past.  I remember searching
> gopher sites in the late 80's, and actually finding useful info (as
> opposed to the crap spewed out by most so-called search engines today).

more than likely you meant early 90's, as it wasn't designed until '91 ;)
and yes, there is MUCH crap. i was always able to locate what i needed using
gopher compared to today, where hal my results are unrelated pages with
metatags for the complete dictionary and pr0n.

> But the question that's been dogging me is:  Where are we going with
> this?  Is the intent to simply keep alive a little piece of history
> for nostalgic purposes?  Are we lying-in-wait, much like the OpenNIC
> project of which I'm a part, waiting to step in and save the day when
> the weight of all the cruft holding up the DNS infrastructure
> caves in on itself?  We gopher step in to save the day when people
> become so jaded with the eye candy that passes for the Internet cry
> out for real information?

i see it as concurrent to the net. people always love pretty sparkly things,
whether or not they are effective at their tasks or not.  Otherwise, UNIX
would be staggeringly popular and Windows andor MacOS would be nowhere.
Gopher is only ugly in it's implementation. you can always shove it in a
pretty box, at anytime. I'm currently building a gopher client in VB .NET
(Dubbed HoleDwellerClient).   I'm open to finding things anywhere i can. I
search not only http, but ftp and gopher as well. Gopher runs parallel, as
an alternate provider for information. Besides, i wouldn't really want it to
become the mainstay, as that means it would be loaded with pr0n, much as the
web is.

> Maybe there's not an end goal in sight, which is OK too.  I keep an
> old Timex-Sinclair and Commodore 128 (both working) in the garage,
> simply because I can.  Will I ever be able to do my taxes on either?
> Probably not, nor would I want to.  They'll sit there and run until
> they die, I suppose, at which point I'll put them back on the shelf
> to let the kids discover them when *I* die.  Will the same be done with
> veronica-2, pygopher, and the rest of the "new breed" of gopher
> clients/servers?  Or are there grander visions out there?

technically, you COULD do your taxes on them -- i did my 8th grade math on a
shiny new vic20 back in the day, so i think a commodore 128 could handle the
load ;)
i think the grander vision is to reestablish it as the incredibly useful
protocol it is. it was designed to mimic a top-down file system...what a
MARVELOUS idea. The design and simplicity of it makes it perfect for use --
again, it was designed for stufdents and faculty of umich to locate
information  -- by anyone despite their skill level.

just my 2p