[gopher] Re: Strategy: end of Gopher in Mozilla

["Trevor" <greendragon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

i'd just like to interject this project i've been working on. holedweller.

http://gopherstuff.googlepages.com/home

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <mdbird@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <gopher@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 9:06 AM
Subject: [gopher] Re: Strategy: end of Gopher in Mozilla


>I am not sure I am a typical Gopher user there may be no such thing but=20
> I thought I would give my views on the future strategy.
>
> I started using Gopher three years ago as a way of challenging=20
> students on my Networking course who had their own web servers at home=20
> and thought they knew everything about network servers.
>
> Obviously Gopher is an exotic and certainly is not a preparation for=20
> the future and I have been subject to snide comments from colleagues=20
> about teaching outdated technologies.
>
> But I cite two main reasons for persisting with Gopher servers.
>
> On lower level courses I use GopherS on Windows XP as my Gopher=20
> Server.
> This introduces the students to the concept of services run by the=20
> operating system and the notion of servers using different ports. Also=20
> by using a range of client software from Lynx, Hgopher, WSgopher,=20
> Firefox and even patched IE 6.
> I can clearly demonstrate that how a client interaction with the same=20
> server software can produce vastly differing results depending on the=20
> features of the client software. The students are genuinely intrigued=20
> to find out that there are other ways of serving web pages and=20
> concealing a website within a Gopher server. This is where Firefox=20
> stands head and shoulders above the other clients it is very capable=20
> delivering a diverse range of file types from Gopher servers. Whereas=20
> older clients just spew out HTML code from Gopher servers. For my=20
> students a simple fully featured client that deals with web pages is a=20
> must to gain their acceptance of Gopher. In the long term the community=20
> must ensure that such clients will continue to be available to those=20
> that will follow on after us. Lynx, Hgopher and WSgopher just 
> don=E2=80=99t=
> cut=20
> it as far as my students are concerned.
>
> On higher level courses I use Bucktooth on Ubuntu Linux as my Gopher=20
> Server.
> This introduces students to the concept of daemons (inetd and xinetd)=20
> TCP/IP services and wrappers. Bucktooth is a fine example of the power=20
> of PERL and its installation scripts are an effective simple=20
> demonstration of how PEARL scripts should work.
>
> For me Gopher provides a different and interesting way of showing how=20
> things really work rather than just using the safe sanitised offerings=20
> of today, that make things so simple that students don=E2=80=99t fully=20
> understand what they have achieved.
>
> Regards
>
> Mike Bird
>
>
>
>
>
>
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