[gopher] Re: Item Type Suggestions

["Matthew Holevinski" <eylusion@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Everyone,

I have joined the ?=BFMailing List=BF? a few days ago, and have been
reading a few threads by everyone. Let me just say I think I have
found my niche, not that it was ever lost to me, I used gopher back
when it was popular, and unfortunately should have pushed to keep it
mainstream. I wanted to be a Computer Programmer back then, I was very
analytical and my thought process was very incremental in the way I
thought things through. But life dictated I take other paths, but
instead of bore everyone about me I would like to say this, I miss
gopher.

I believe there was a posting on slashdot a few years back that took
the words right out of my mouth.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3D9002&cid=3D605938

I especially liked this part:

"So after wading through various gopher servers from various
universities that I've never heard of, I found myself reading about
multithreaded routing protocols, papers on linguistics, and other
various research topics.

Then it dawned on me. Hey! This is what the internet used to be like!
Some sysadmin saying "email me if you want to upload something here".
Research papers that I don't understand. Wierd stuff that I would
never expect to find anywhere else. "

and

"I know for some people, they simply aren't interested, they don't
have time to just explore and read random things, but those of us who
remember when you could go five clicks on the web and be reading more
about archaeology than you ever wanted to know, well, here it is
again.

I recommend these gopher pages to any kid who has curiousity about
what one might find on the internet. Brings back the old days of
"whoa, there is a lot to learn in this world" feelings. "

I know I truly remember that, reading research papers, and rfc's, and
medical journals, and whitepapers on nuclear physics, or new designs
for modular lunar modules, you could find stuff like that back then.
I'm not going to sit here and piss and whine about the glitter and the
glam, and web 2.0 and my hatred for all things "new tech" and
arbitrarily retarded to it's very core and fundamentally worthless in
it's own right. I am beginning to feel as though I have found the
others that feel the very same way as me.

I miss the long hours reading online, collaborating on projects, and
giving my 2 cents to those who actually gave a damn.
 ' no, i will not sign your self indulgent guestbook, no I will not
visit your self-serving myspace page, no I will not goto pepsi.com and
type in your dumb-ass code, no i'm not interested in your
self-important web 2.0 site ' My life has meaning and my time has
value, I look to latter days when efficiency is mainstream, I don't
want to watch 29 minutes of commercials for a 30 minute program on
something that has been dumbed down to a 3rd graders reading level, I
don't want to buy the swiffer-jet, nor am I interested.

But Gopher, I've seen a few users gopher sites lately, i've devoured
them, I've read everyone's pointless ramblings, and images of their
server serving up the gopher pages, and loved every minute of it,
because it wasn't cut and paste glitter graphics on their myspace
pages. It was something these people put an effort into and actually
cared about. It didn't matter if it was a gopher link to my local
weather report, or a picture of their pet dog. I never emailed anyone,
but gauruntee'd i bet if I did I would of gotten a response.

p.s. and it wouldn't of been from india....

Sorry to stick my snout where it doesn't belong everyone, but I just
had to vent my frustrations with the way things are and they way they
will be to someone, and I think maybe this is the group that might
actually care.

We have a common bond, and it's gopher, and although i'm completely
green all over again to this old protocol, I expect I'll get up to
speed very fast.

Matthew Holevinski
Topeka, KS
eylusion@xxxxxxxxx
785-276-1194 (work phone number)
Ya I typed that in plain text what?
ohh and if your ever in my neck of the woods I'll buy you a beer :-) how's =
that

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 1:44 PM, JumpJet Mailbox <jumpjetinfo@xxxxxxxxx> wr=
ote:
> Life would be far better if the average person had more pride of workmans=
hip!
>
> We are not talking about a major programming effort here.  Making a good =
Gopher program is far less complicated than (I would estimate) about 80% of=
 the programming currently being done by both amatures and professionals.  =
The creator of the Acorn Gopher Client for example, claimed that he built t=
he Acorn Client in less than 4 hours.
>
> Today, there is almost NO excuse why a single person could not build a ne=
ar flawless piece of Gopher Software in about a week or two.  The real issu=
e here in NOT "can it be programmed quickly and relatively bug-free", but r=
ather "what FEATURES are to be incorporated".
>
> We are not in a market competition that requires rapid software release t=
o stay ahead of the competitors, nor are profits hinging on the rapid reale=
ase of software.  We are instead striving to get more uses interested in th=
e Gopher Protocol.  The critera for that goal is software with "Features Pe=
ople Want", and "Relatively bug-free performance".  These goals dictate doi=
ng the job "Right The First Time" (NOT quick and dirty programming).
>
> We are only likely to have a potential new Gopher Protocol user examine t=
he protocol and software ONCE.  If he doesn't see what he needs (or he sees=
 slapped-together-software), it is unlikely that he will ever examine the p=
rotocol again.
>
> --- On Mon, 7/14/08, Jay Nemrow <jnemrow@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> From: Jay Nemrow <jnemrow@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: [gopher] Re: Item Type Suggestions
> To: gopher@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Monday, July 14, 2008, 3:22 PM
>
> All productive programming is Quick and Dirty.  Funny that you use
> that Phrase, as QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) was the basis
> of MSDOS that stomped out competition quite effectively, simply
> because it came to market first (at a good price-point), though it was
> technically inferior in many ways.  If you ponder too much, consider
> all the angles, you will be non-competitive and never get out a
> product before the market is already saturated or has blown past you.
>
> You can never do it right the first time.  It only gets closer to
> "right" as you read your market and make changes to meet needs
> (sometimes requiring a complete recoding of things you never
> considered that were important).  Even though Gopher is not a
> commercial product (sure sounds like some people are thinking along
> these lines though - "We have GOT to do this right"), it might be a
> desire that it meets the needs of a group of gopher-wranglers.  New
> versions make that happen, as opposed to some mystical, perfect
> "first-effort" implementation.
>
> sounds like you had a lot of work incident to y2k.  If the originial
> programmers had "gotten it right" initially, your job might not have
> existed.  Perhaps we should be glad for unperfect things that require
> our effort in order to get "better" or to "fix" things.
>
> Jay
>
> On 7/12/08, JumpJet Mailbox <jumpjetinfo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Thanks to the dilligent effort of countless untold computer specialists
> (including myself) over a period of several years, our efforts were indee=
d
> successful (but a royal pain none the less).
>>
>>  Fixing Gopher issues I'm afraid, won't generate quite the
> response from the community, so we have GOT to do it right the first time=
... NO
> "quick-and-dirty" programming!
>>
>> --- On Thu, 7/10/08, Avery M. <averym@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>  From: Avery M. <averym@xxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> Subject: [gopher] Re: Item Type Suggestions
>>  To: gopher@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008, 4:44 PM
>>
>>
>>  You mean the non-bug?
>>
>>  On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 4:34 PM, JumpJet Mailbox
> <jumpjetinfo@xxxxxxxxx>
>>  wrote:
>>  > Expediency is what always gets us into trouble.  Does anyone
> remember the
>>  Y2K bug?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>