Gopher aesthetics
=================

Yesterday I've connected to tilde.chat[0] for the first time and was
introduced to tilde.news[1]. Since it's based on Lobste.rs engine I
figured I could re-use the code from my unofficial lobste.rs mirror on
gopher[2] and it worked flawlessly! Just an URL to change, some ascii
art to update and here it is[3].

I then helped ben to have it running on the tilde.news domain[4]. It's
then that I realized we have two versions of the same tool and content
running at different URLs on different machines but that okay and
pretty cool in fact. Copying data at different places ensure some kind
of resilience.

Same with this phlog and my whole sdf.org gopherspace, I have my posts
hosted both on there and on my server at typed-hole.org. I still can
get the benefits of having my phlog visible at SDF and have the
content at $HOME. Readers can find my content through different paths
and this content may diverge in the future but that's fine.


                      0/        (  \,/  )
                     /|          \_ | _/
                      /\         (_/ \_)

                  "Is this decentralization?"

The point I'm trying to make is that thanks to gopher plain-text
aesthetics you can be/host anywhere and still feel comfortable, the UI
being always the same with text and links. Something that web sites
lost trying to mimic a desktop app whenever they can.  Gopher feels
like an hypothetical soviet supermarket with barebones shelves where
everything is displayed almost the same way, nothing is really fancy
and only content matters. The lack of aesthetics makes every
subtleties, that people from port 70 add to their content, unique and
impactful. Creativity through constraints.

Tags: #gopher #news

[0] https://tilde.chat
[1] https://tilde.news
[2] https://github.com/julienXX/gophsters
[3] gopher://sdf.org:70/1/users/julienxx/Tilde.news
[4] gopher://tilde.news

-------
Last update: 31 March, 2019