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burrowing.7 (2904B) [raw]

      1 .Dd November 15, 2021
      2 .Dt BURROWING 7
      3 .Os
      4 .Sh NAME
      5 .Nm burrowing
      6 .Nd from
      7 .Xr text-only 7
      8 to gopher-only
      9 .Sh DESCRIPTION
     10 This past month,
     11 I've spent a lot of time learning about gopher.
     12 It's truly a fascinating alternative to the world wide web,
     13 not just in the content found there
     14 but also in terms of the protocol itself.
     15 .Pp
     16 As of this writing, I've decided to deprecate
     17 .Lk https://text.alexkarle.com
     18 in favor of serving that content (and more!) over gopher
     19 instead, exclusively.
     20 .Sh IMPLICATIONS
     21 This shouldn't have much impact on this
     22 .Xr blog 7 .
     23 After all,
     24 .Xr text-only 7
     25 was an experiment to begin with!
     26 I'll still keep publishing semi-regularly here,
     27 I just don't plan on maintaining a text dump via HTTP.
     28 .Pp
     29 I will, however, start publishing gopher-only content.
     30 There's two main reasons for this:
     31 .Pp
     32 .Bl -enum -compact
     33 .It
     34 I want to see more activity on gopher
     35 .It
     36 Gopher is easier to publish on
     37 .El
     38 .Pp
     39 Admittedly, number 2 is my own doing.
     40 I moved this blog to
     41 .Xr mdoc 7
     42 willingly
     43 .Xr ( my-old-man 7 )
     44 to learn the language.
     45 I've found that it slows my raw output,
     46 which,
     47 while fine for longer form pieces,
     48 is a pain for shorter-form thoughts.
     49 No regrets (I learned a ton!),
     50 but shorter-form thoughts do much better in plaintext!
     51 .Pp
     52 The first reason is a theme for this blog:
     53 be the change you want to see.
     54 I would love to see more content on gopher,
     55 so I'm taking the plunge.
     56 .Sh THE PITCH
     57 So, why gopher?
     58 Probably the biggest reason to explore gopher is
     59 the content.
     60 It's a parallel network totally untouched by
     61 commercial interests.
     62 You won't see a single ad.
     63 .Pp
     64 The second reason to try gopher lies in the
     65 protocol itself--gopher has a standardized menu
     66 interface, and individual gopherholes cannot
     67 change the way you interact with them beyond
     68 the standard.
     69 In a world where it seems every bit of the
     70 web's UI has been rewritten in JavaScript (looking
     71 at you, <div>'s that should be <button>'s),
     72 it's wildly refreshing
     73 to just have a predictable menu.
     74 .Pp
     75 So, gopher separates the interaction (menus)
     76 from the content (can be anything, but is usually
     77 plaintext).
     78 I think this is a cool design choice
     79 because it emphasizes what the gopher protocol
     80 is really about: fetching documents.
     81 .Pp
     82 Ultimately,
     83 it's hard to describe and much better experienced.
     84 For a quick dip,
     85 try out a proxy like
     86 .Lk https://gopherproxy.net .
     87 For client recommendations,
     88 I'd check out
     89 .Xr lynx 1 ,
     90 .Xr sacc 1 ,
     91 or
     92 .Xr bombadillo 1 .
     93 Bombadillo has gemini support too,
     94 gemini being another alternative internet protocol
     95 worth checking out.
     96 I'll likely put my stuff up there too,
     97 if time allows.
     98 .Pp
     99 Not sure where to start in your client?
    100 Go to
    101 .Lk gopher://alexkarle.com
    102 of course! :)
    103 .Sh SEE ALSO
    104 .Bl -bullet -compact
    105 .It
    106 .Xr blog 7
    107 .It
    108 .Lk https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1436 RFC 1436 (Gopher)
    109 .It
    110 .Lk http://gopherproject.org
    111 .It
    112 .Lk http://gemini.circumlunar.space Gemini official site
    113 .El