Gemini is a little gem

https://andregarzia.com/2022/01/gemini-is-a-little-gem.html

by soapdog • 4 years ago

192 120 4 years ago

Also, focusing on protocol only makes one miss the rest of Gemini, which is the ecosystem and people who are having a great time using it. Sometimes, it feels to me like someone is at a party ranting about the music not being good enough while there is a smiling crowd dancing and having fun.

This is the biggest point, imo. We don't all have to like the same things, we don't have to all use the same tools, we don't have to belong to the same communities. There's room on the web for all of us.

Gemini appeals to me as someone who appreciates well designed constraints. The fact that HTTP+HTML can accomplish the same things is not only missing the point but is actively against the point.

tharne2• 4 years ago

We don't all have to like the same things, we don't have to all use the same tools, we don't have to belong to the same communities.

This is one the main reasons I have a hobby computer just for playing around with openBSD. There's something really refreshing (and fun!) about a project that's just trying to do it's own thing without pleasing everyone and their mother.

1vuio0pswjnm73• 4 years ago

"This is the biggest point, imo. We don't all have to like the same things, we don't have to all use the same tools, we don't have to belong to the same communities. There's room on the web for all of us."

Exactly right.

Tech companies that rely directly or indirectly on the survival and expansion of web advertising, i.e., most of them, prefer a world where web users do not think independently.

It is easier to advertise on (and manipulate) a web where every participant likes the same things, uses the same tools, and belongs to the same communities.

hprotagonist• 4 years ago

Instead of simply commenting on Hacker News like I did in previous similar posts, I thought I’d write a little blog post I could link there and in future discussions.

... published via https on a website, even.

sudobash1• 4 years ago

Since HN is on a https website, I think this makes sense. As the article says, Gemini is not going to (and shouldn't) replace the web:

Gemini is its own thing that will co-exist with the Web.

So I think being published on the web for other people on the web makes sence and is not antithetical.

marginalia_nu• 4 years ago

Dunno, I publish most of my content on both gemini and https. One does not necessarily exclude the other.

thewakalix• 4 years ago

Yes? It’s not Fight Club.

soapdog• 4 years ago

Because people inside Gemini ecosystem already know all the stuff I wrote in the post. That is an article for people on the Web who are talking about Gemini.

rossdavidh3• 4 years ago

I have no idea what we are talking about, here. Can someone point me to a good, short introduction?

tephra• 4 years ago

Gemini is a neat little protocol with a neat community around it. https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

rossdavidh3• 4 years ago

Cool, thanks.

leephillips2• 4 years ago

https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

https://www.linuxpromagazine.com/index.php/Issues/2021/245/T...

saxonww• 4 years ago

Thank you. Gemini is also a crypto exchange so I went into this thinking it was another article trying to justify Web3.

rossdavidh3• 4 years ago

Thanks!

alamortsubite• 4 years ago

I just read the post and take it as a good introduction. That's about as much as I've read about Gemini, though, so maybe I'm wrong.

EDIT: The first few paragraphs of the post might lead you to believe it doesn't serve as an introduction, so maybe skip those.

zepto3• 4 years ago

The Web is your orchestral music, Gemini is low-fi chiptune.

Likening the web to orchestral music is questionable.

boring_twenties• 4 years ago

Noisecore might be a better comparison.

gwern• 4 years ago

The other end is questionable too. IMO, Gemini has too many features to be the 'low-fi chiptune' of hypertext. Every time I look at it, I come away thinking it is not in any sweet spot but perhaps the worst of both worlds: too featureful to truly foster creativity by constraint, and yet lacking entirely too many features to compete with a simple robust Markdown static site stack.

If we wanted the pixel art or low-fi chiptune of hypertext, both historically and in terms of esthetic, we'd be targeting classic textfiles: 80-col ASCII art .txt (maaaybe with the absolute bare minimum of adding a clickable link for navigation to make up for the lack of a TUI BBS interface wrapping the individual text files).

zepto3• 4 years ago

That’s pretty much gopher already.

errcorrectcode5• 4 years ago

The web used to be jazzier with blink tags, Comic Sans, red-on-blue H1, and giant spew walls of yellow text lacking subpages.

shuntress2• 4 years ago

Since the markup language is so simple, it lowers the barrier of entry for those wanting to produce content

I see this as one of the major problems with The Web.

It's just too technically difficult for a normal person to make a useful reliable website. That naturally drives people from the open web into closed web-replacements like facebook.

EDIT: With that said. I can't really get behind something like gemini whole-heartedly. It just feels like adding rendering support to browsers for gemini style markdown and serving them with appropriate Content-Type headers over regular HTTP would be a better way to do it.

EDIT 2: Or campaigning to add support for the protocol in common browsers. That is, after all, why URLs include the protocol and I know people here are extremely fond of bashing client implementations for not displaying the protocol part of a URL.

lbotos• 4 years ago

I think you are conflating two points.

It's just too technically difficult for a normal person to make a useful reliable website.

There are many hosting providers from the hostgators of the world to wix and squarespace that make this pretty easy if you want to host content.

That naturally drives people from the open web into closed web-replacements like facebook.

The social aspect is what drives people to social networks. All of their friends are there.

Many people don't want to just host content, they want chat, video, messenger, photo storage. For those that don't need it widely accessible, group chats seemed to have filled gap between forum <-> text message/email.

shuntress2• 4 years ago

That all still relates to the technical difficulty of hosting (and, to be a bit more specific, account/identity management.)

Facebook doesn't have some magic technical secret that makes chat, video, messenger, storage, etc handled by their servers somehow different than if it were handled by a server in your home.

errcorrectcode5• 4 years ago

That's a skills and lack of software (CMS) problem, not a blame-the-tools problem.

Dumbing-down the web is a dumb idea. It's dumb enough already and shouldn't be any dumber.

brimble• 4 years ago

It just feels like adding rendering support to browsers for gemini style markdown and serving them with appropriate Content-Type headers over regular HTTP would be a better way to do it.

One of the nice things about keeping it separate is that clicking a link is safe. Relaxing. If the linked page wants to spy on you or run a crypto miner or bug you with stupid pop-ups or try to trick you into automatically clicking "allow" on notifications, it'll first have to pop a "would you like to open this link in [web browser]?" window or something.

Yes you can cut down permissions on the web but then 90% of it doesn't work without a bunch of fiddling.

velcrovan• 4 years ago

The key to understanding it is just not to expect it to have mass appeal, ever. It lowers barriers for developers and tech hobbyists. It is a nice crunchy area for developers to have fun with that doesn’t require herculean feats of programming to serve or consume. It's like ham radio.

My only beef with it is we already have gopher!

spc4765• 4 years ago

But gopher doesn't have TLS. Yes, there are clients that attempt to make TLS connections to gopher servers and will fall back to plain TCP on failure, but that's a hack (and a pretty annoying one at that).

owroomexorcist2• 4 years ago

What's wrong with not having TLS? If it's just for hobbiests to share text documents, why include a TLS layer?

harryvederci2• 4 years ago

I upvoted both this and the "Gemini is Solutionism at its Worst" post mentioned.

It's a radical idea, but the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Jtsummers6• 4 years ago

What is "radical" about Gemini?

ForHackernews• 4 years ago

It's a new internet protocol not designed to make somebody rich.

harryvederci2• 4 years ago

I didn't refer to Gemini. It was meant to be read as:

"Here's a radical idea: the truth is probably somewhere in the middle."

tharne2• 4 years ago

I'm really rooting for this project. Sure it's probably over-idealistic and not entirely practical, but I think that's part of the appeal - a group of folks trying to build a better web and having fun doing it.

kkjjkgjjgg• 4 years ago

What is Gemini? Google turns up a Bitcoin Exchange and lots of astrology?

Jtsummers6• 4 years ago

There's a link to the description in the first paragraph of the article, and elsewhere in this discussion already: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

airstrike• 4 years ago

Ironically, there are two current projects competing for the Gemini name: the Winklevi's bitcoin exchange (indubitably named after their twinship) and the more-than-a-protocol for a no-frills version of the World Wide Web, which is what TFA is talking about.

koeng• 4 years ago

I have a lot of fun with Gemini! Since I couldn't find a good static gmi -> html converter that I liked for my website, I built my own. It works great and is pretty simple! This is one thing that people miss out on - I can actually build things on top of gemini / gemtext because it is so simple.

ReleaseCandidat• 4 years ago

I see, Gemini is not to make the life of content creators easier, but the life of the server and client implementers.

The need for TLS is a bit strange regarding this, especially if they encourage the use of self-signed certificates.

   4 TLS
   Use of TLS for Gemini transactions is mandatory.

   Clients can validate TLS connections however they like (including not at all) but the strongly RECOMMENDED approach is 
   to implement a lightweight "TOFU" certificate-pinning system which treats self-signed certificates as first- class 
   citizens. This greatly reduces TLS overhead on the network (only one cert needs to be sent, not a whole chain) and 
   lowers the barrier to entry for setting up a Gemini site (no need to pay a CA or setup a Let's Encrypt cron job, 
   just make a cert and go).

https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/specification.gmi

https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/best-practices.gmi

spc4765• 4 years ago

Okay, so when you have the "Encrypt All The Things" campaign, and "never NEVER implement crypto on your own," what else is there besides TLS?

One of the triggers for Gemini was the push to add TLS to gopher, which isn't that easy [1].

[1] http://boston.conman.org/2019/03/31.1

Jtsummers6• 4 years ago

My understanding of the issue as it relates to Gemini is that the Gemini community is:

1. Largely using self-signed certificates on the servers. That gets you into the protocol, but doesn't really help with trust.

2. Using "trust on first use" (TOFU) in the clients, which doesn't scale. The clients have to know whether a particular cert is valid or not, and that means the user needs to manually verify or some trusted data source has to be distributed to clients. Manual verification turns into "yeah, yeah, just let me read the page" after a while. And a trusted data source is, well, hard to keep maintained, and even harder if it wasn't in the model from the start.

So TLS gets Gemini security, of a sort, but the way it's being used makes it less effective than it should be.

RunSet• 4 years ago

"never NEVER implement crypto on your own"

I understand that the admonition "never roll your own crypto" (as in develop your own encryption algorithm) is distinct from "never implement crypto on your own" (as in implement an existing encryption algorithm), although it is commonly misread as the latter.

The phrase "never roll your own crypto" was originally used in the context of algorithms.

http://web.archive.org/web/20030629085904/http://www-106.ibm...

Hopefully given the description / source code of "a published, well-used, tried-and-tested algorithm", most programmers could implement it in a language with which they are familiar.

meltedcapacitor• 4 years ago

ssh server.org cat /index.gmi

not sure if that's much simpler though.

s58065338• 4 years ago

I see, Gemini is not to make the life of content creators easier, but the life of the server and client implementers.

As far as I understand, the distinction (content creator on the one hand, server and client implementers on the other) goes against the Gemini philosophy. The idea is rather that it should be reasonably easy to be both.

throw1092010• 4 years ago

The problem isn't Gemini, the problem is Gemini marketing.

Gemini enthusiasts (or, at least the ones I've seen posts from, most notably ddevault) market Gemini as a replacement (edit: in whole or part, it doesn't matter, the argument is the same) for "the web".

Then, when you point out that Gemini has basically none of the features of "the web" (and is incapable of supporting the vast majority of its content, and even the vast majority of its good content), they then say that "oh, you don't need those features, inline images are an anti-pattern!" Or something.

The problem isn't that Gemini has no features, the problem is that it's being marketed as a replacement (edit: in whole or in non-trivial part, it doesn't matter) for the web, which is it clearly unsuited for.

Gemini is bad at conveying almost any content except text, which also means that it's unsuitable for scientific papers, education, browser games, social media (even for less "social" social media, like Reddit and HN, where you could be exchanging purely technical information), web services, web applications (disclaimer: I think that web applications are generally slow and dumb, but I'd much rather use HN from my browser than download a dedicated .deb just for it), wikis and encyclopedias, Stack Overflow, search engines, and various other web things that your life would be significantly less great without.

So, by all means, use Gemini. Just don't say that it's a "replacement" for the web (edit: not even part of it - Gemini does so little that the comparison is entirely invalid), or "better" than the web (or associated technology). It is its own thing with its own community that is entirely complementary to the web, and nothing more.

If you want to go back to the internet dark ages without Wikipedia, Google, Stack Overflow, Compiler Explorer, and Shadertoy, have fun - just don't drag me down with you.

agumonkey• 4 years ago

to me what gemini lacks, is a sense of information ergonomics

so far it seems less usable than a badly coded as400 terminal applicatoin

readyplayeremma2• 4 years ago

Can you elaborate on this a bit?

The protocol itself, as far as how it conveys and interlinks information seems comparable to early HTML. Documents with very basic formatting, that can be navigated via a hyperlink, forming a web or information graph in the big picture.

It sounds a bit like you didn't enjoy the browser you used rather than the protocol? There are terminal based browsers that might seem very non-modern, but there are also full GUI browsers that aren't much different than a web browser as far as UX. Within the limitation of the defined protocol of course, meaning text only with basic formatting and no inline images.

I personally find the formatting limitations and lack of inline images leads to a richer experience of taking in the information being conveyed. It's almost like the difference between reading a book and watching a movie. Both have their place in our culture. Even today in the age of VR/AR, 3D IMAX films, etc., we still read books, and it is a pleasant experience for many to take in content that way. There are no distractions, only the content.

Gemini is uniquely enjoyable because the imposed limitations provide many of the same benefits that people enjoy about reading books vs watching movies. The modern web very rarely provides content in that form. Nearly every article is interspersed with all kinds of media to "engage" the viewer. I enjoy a lot of it, however, I think there is something to be said about just putting the text out there bare as it is.

Gemini creates a space where the content doesn't have to compete with distractions. All content is on equal footing and must stand solely on the written words themselves. No distractions. No way for one piece of content to sway you over another just because of high-budget media production. Just bare words that you must interpret yourself. It leads to an atmosphere that is engaging in some ways today's web cannot be, like a movie cannot be in place of a book. It requires a different kind of interpretation and imagination to take in, and I really appreciate that.

Gigachad2• 4 years ago

Gemini really seems like throwing the baby out with the bath water. The primary gripe seems to be that they don't like javascript and modern web tracking. But in the process they lost inline links, images, video, and a bunch of other things which are useful for reading static documents.

nathell• 4 years ago

In 2019, I wrote about the need for a web of documents [0], where I wrote about the importance of having static documents and sketched another approach.

Gemini is a web of documents. A rudimentary one, but very content-focused – the signal-to-noise ratio is typically much higher than on WWW. You can visit any capsule in the Geminispace and have full confidence that it’ll only serve you gemtext to read.

[0] https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2019/10/07/web-of-documents/

gorjusborg• 4 years ago

How can it be throwing the baby out with the bathwater when it isn't a replacement for X (and I assume you are implying X is the web)?

I love the idea of a set of technologies targeted at text, and only text.

Nobody is saying you can't have the web. I'm not giving it up.

On the other hand, I welcome the a place I can go and not being accosted by ads, images, videos and cookie banners. A place where content is king.

rdiddly• 4 years ago

This is kind of a repeat of one of the straw man arguments mentioned in the article. If it's a response to how Gemini is being marketed (marketed?) then possibly the "marketers" are to blame, but I would have to see for myself, whether they're just saying "Hey here's something nifty" or going all full-blown "Hey here is the one true good right way and the solution to all problems and everything else is wrong and bad and anyone who doesn't go along is a horrifying evil person etc. and you're either with us or against us!" Sometimes the former quickly turns into the latter on the internet.

throw1092010• 4 years ago

Please don't accuse me of strawmanning without providing concrete evidence for it.

s58065338• 4 years ago

Did ddevault specifically say that Gemini should be regarded as a replacement for the web? I never read him that way. As far as I can tell, people are constantly stressing the converse, namely that Gemini is not supposed to be the next web. It's even in the FAQ [1] -- if that's not part of the "marketing material", then I don't know what is. It would be very kind if you could provide specific citations to substantiate your claim about Gemini marketing.

[1] see 1.6 in https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.gmi

throw1092010• 4 years ago

Right in that FAQ is the phrase "You may think of Gemini as "the web, stripped right back to its essence"". To a technical person, "foo, stripped right down to its essence" means that this thing is directly competing with foo - or, at the very least, that it exists in the same realm as foo. Gemini does not exist in the same realm as the web, nor is it at all similar to "the web, stripped right back to its essence".

The fact that occasionally fans might disclaim that it's only meant to replace "part of" the web is materially irrelevant - Gemini isn't capable of replacing any nontrivial fraction of it. (its fans claim it is, though - "I want to discard the parts of the web that Gemini does better, and explore other solutions for anything that’s left of the web which is worth keeping (hint: much of it is not).")[1]

[1] https://drewdevault.com/2020/11/01/What-is-Gemini-anyway.htm...

cartesius133• 4 years ago

This is probably the most annoying straw man argument against Gemini. One of the first things you see in their official page is:

"Gemini is a new internet protocol which:

Is heavier than gopher Is lighter than the web Will not replace either"

And if you hang out and talk to people using it you find out that most, if not all, of them are well aware that Gemini will not and can not replace the Web.

Even Drew Devault has said this about Gemini: "Gemini does not solve all of the web’s problems, but it addresses a subset of its use-cases better than the web does, and that excites me. I want to discard the parts of the web that Gemini does better, and explore other solutions for anything that’s left of the web which is worth keeping". And don't think anyone here in good faith will say that this is "marketing Gemini as a Web replacement". You are imagining these marketers and arguing against them

throw1092010• 4 years ago

"I want to discard the parts of the web that Gemini does better, and explore other solutions for anything that’s left of the web which is worth keeping"

You conveniently left off the next part of that sentence: "(hint: much of it is not)" It's pretty clear that ddevault thinks that Gemini can replace a large fraction of the web (which is the issue under dispute).

The difference between "Gemini can replace the whole web", "Gemini can replace a large fraction of the web", and "Gemini can replace anything more than a vanishingly tiny sliver of the web" is largely irrelevant, as all of them are false, and my argument reads the same if you substitute either of those other two phrases in.

nonethewiser2• 4 years ago

The problem isn't that Gemini has no features, the problem is that it's being marketed as a replacement

Is it? This is at the very top of their front page:

Gemini is a new internet protocol which:
Is heavier than gopher
Is lighter than the web
Will not replace either

https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

1vuio0pswjnm73• 4 years ago

"So, by all means, use Gemini. Just don't say that it's a "replacement" for the web (edit: not even part of it - Gemini does so little that the comparison is entirely invalid), or "better" than the web (or associated technology). It is its own thing with its own community that is entirely complementary to the web, and nothing more."

1.6 Do you really think you can replace the web?

Not for a minute! Nor does anybody involved with Gemini want to destroy Gopherspace. Gemini is not intended to replace either Gopher or the web, but to co-exist peacefully alongside them as one more option which people can freely choose to use if it suits them. In the same way that some people currently serve the same content via gopher and the web, people will be able to "bihost" or "trihost" content on whichever combination of protocols they think offer the best match to their technical, philosophical and aesthetic requirements and those of their intended audience.

Source: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.gml

1vuio0pswjnm73• 4 years ago

Corrected URL: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.gmi

Nbox9• 4 years ago

thanks to the inclusion of a MIME type in the response header Gemini can be used to serve plain text, rich text, HTML, Markdown, LaTeX, etc. [0]

I think you are referring to the text/gemini format which isn’t a required portion of the IP.

[0] https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/specification.html

jalino23• 4 years ago

I downloaded the Lagrange browser. but how do I find content?

tpoacher• 4 years ago

start with geminispace.info

enjoy the rabbit hole

makeworld• 4 years ago

Search engine: geminispace.info

Protocol homepage: gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/

Feed aggregator (one of many): gemini://warmedal.se/~antenna/

Curated Gemini directory: gemini://medusae.space/

seanw444• 4 years ago

This was weird timing. Haven't seen a post on Gemini on here in a while, and I just started yesterday building an Express-like Gemini server framework in Go, to get more familiar with Go.

jl62• 4 years ago

The most important words in the Gemini FAQ: a clearly demarcated space.

Regardless of the protocol’s technical merits and demerits, that’s what generates a lot of the value.

skybrian• 4 years ago

One problem is the way Gemini and Mastodon (and even Twitter at one time) are often promoted:

Once you have a client that supports it, you’re free to enter the ecosystem. Once there, you’ll notice that it is composed of many vibrant communities. There are artists creating cool experiments, writers and essayists pouring their hearts and brains out, etc. You can find a tribe for you or start a new thing.

I assume this is true for the person who wrote it, but finding people who are interesting is often a problem. There is lots of noise and I have trouble finding “vibrant” communities that are relevant to me. I’m following only two interesting people on Mastodon after several years and I found them because links to interesting things they wrote were posted to a link-sharing site.

Specific examples beat abstract arguments. The best way to promote Gemini would be to quote and link to interesting content you found on Gemini.

And that means you’re playing the same social game as everyone else, doesn’t it?

pvaldes• 4 years ago

Feels like an improved gopher and facing similar problems. People try the vehicle, but stay for the content.

errcorrectcode5• 4 years ago

I don't understand. What problem does it solve? Why fracture pervasive, compatible ecosystems with emperor's new clothes? It throws away decades of infrastructure interop and support. If you want to "take privacy seriously", there's onion hidden sites and tor browsers.

It appears to mix together too many concerns, but best of luck.

ajioasfnokal• 4 years ago

Honestly insane this post is even needed. Doubters really glance at Gemini and just make up shit on the spot. Makes you wonder what else they bullshit about.

I use Lagrange to browse Gemini blogs as a reprieve from the bloat, just gimme ideas with text. It's nice and super easy, just try it and find an aggregator like Antenna, and if you hate it uninstall it.

blippage• 4 years ago

I investigated Gemini a few months back. I had problems either getting the clients to compile or work.

dillo-gemini looked cool, but I couldn't get that to work either.

After trying a few clients, I eventually gave up.

dataangel• 4 years ago

ELI5 why use Gemini? This post is my first hearing about it, so maybe I'm missing something, but nothing here is obviously compelling. As a user, I could care less whether Gemtext is technically easier to parse than Markdown. "We simplified some technical details and left out all modern features" seems neither like a technical feat nor a selling point.

Gemini is a little gem

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