gemini article

src/posts/0016-gemini/index.org

@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+#+TITLE: Gemini
+#+AUTHOR: Yann Esposito
+#+EMAIL: yann@esposito.host
+#+DATE: [2020-11-09 Mon]
+#+KEYWORDS: internet gopher gemini
+#+DESCRIPTION: How I discovered gemini
+#+OPTIONS: auto-id:t toc:t
+
+This weekend I read an article about gopher and gemini.
+I already seen articles about gemini pass.
+Somehow, it was more appealing to me than gopher space for totally
+subjective reasons I think.
+Anyway this time I really digged into it, and I loved the experience.
+
+At first sight gemini is like a parallel web for nerds.
+It has fundamental changes that I would have really liked to see from the
+modern web.
+The client decide the design, no user tracking, calm, minimalistic, simple.
+
+Right now, on the web, most news website make the experience terrible to
+read the article.
+The page is bloated with a lot of animations, popin asking you to accept
+the cookies, ads with videos, strange fonts or design, plenty of
+javascript, trackers, etc...
+
+Gemini make those kind of anti-design impractical.
+In gemini space there is no:
+
+- CSS: the client decide the look of the page, the fonts, the colors, the
+  width of the columns, etc...
+- inline image: you can still link to images, but images should not be
+  displayed in the middle of the text.
+- inline links: If you link to an external resource, it is clearly visible
+  as an element on its own line.
+- cookies
+- HTTP headers used to track users
+- scripts on the client side
+- hard to parse format (no HTML, XHTML, etc...)
+
+Another strength of Gemini is its protocol's simplicity.
+It is easy to write your own gemini server as well as your own gemini
+client within a few hours of work in your programming language of choice.
+
+And last but not least, gemini is unfit to serve "big" files.
+So we should not experience people going to gemini for music/movie piracy.
+If you want to serve "big" files you should link to another protocol.
+
+Personally I started to browse gemini directly from emacs with elpher.
+But I know there are a lot of clients.
+
+I liked gemini so much I hacked my blog to also publish in the gemini sphere.
+I serve my pages with a rust based server.
+And I hacked a quick script to transform my org mode files to gemini format.
+Gemini file format is a kind of super simplified markdown.
+I really like the simplicity of it.
+
+Here are a few links to get you started.
+
+Web:
+
+- [[https://gemini.circumlunar.space][gemini homepage]]
+- [[https://thelambdalab.xyz/elpher/][elpher emacs gopher and gemini client]]
+- [[https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/gemini.circumlunar.space/][Explore gemini from the web]]
+
+Gopher:
+
+- [[gopher://thelambdalab.xyz/1/projects/elpher/][elpher]]
+
+Gemini:
+
+- [[gemini://her.esy.fun][my website in gemini]]