[gopher] Gopher++ scrapped & Internet Archive -style thingy

[Kim Holviala]

On 20.4.2010 18:40, Mike Hebel wrote:

>> * I cannot add anything to the client side of the protocol or old but
>> still running servers will break - my gopher++ enchanced Mosaic for
>> example refused to browse quite a number of existing sites
>
> Wait...what? You can't tell your client to only activate Gopher++ when
> it sees your server? Isn't there _any_ sort of identification method in
> the server protocol that gives you the server software name?

There's the little difference between a 20-line patch and a 200-line 
patch to an existing client. Identification requires a lot more code and 
I just wanted to have a few simple additions.

> Well how about this - make the Gopher++ identification file based. If
> the client detects gophernicus.txt then enable Gopher++ for that session
> otherwise don't.

That requires keeping state in the client which I don't want to require. 
Right now a gopher client doesn't have to keep ANY state between page loads.

----

It's easy to send extra data from the server to the client in 100% 
backwards-compatible way (type 1 menus have a lot of unused space for 
sideband data). My TITLE resource proposal was an example of this - it 
doesn't break ANY existing client, no matter how old and simple.

But, I need a way to do the opposite - I need a way for a client to send 
extra data to the server in such way that old servers won't break. I 
haven't found a solution to this yet - and I mean a solution that 
doesn't require probing and keeping state in the client.


- Kim