ID: d96x65
Date: 2024-02-23T21:18:43Z
Title: I don't like Gemini (the protocol)
Authors: Izuru Yakumo <yakumo.izuru@chaotic.ninja>
Topics: Rants

The downsides of that protocol outweigh any upside, if it ever had one
in the first place, like the following

* Reinvents markdown
  * By making text/gemini

* Reinvents gophermaps (seriously?)

* Zealously overuses TLS for everything
  * For something that's largely populated by static content
    * Not even HTTP is like this

* It's not remotely easy to maintain a server
  * Want to have virtual hosts (a la nginx) and user directories?
    * Life is tough, you can't have both, as long as you use a server not written in one of those hyped-up languages (e.g. Rust)

* curl(1) won't support it -- because it's not an Internet standard
  * Its specification is known to have vague details, too

The only upside would be allowing client certificates, but even that is somewhat trivial to do with HTTP, just that nobody uses it

EOF