On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 7:39 PM Petite Abeille <petite.abeille at gmail.com> wrote: Older protocols such as SMTP, POP3, IMAP, and NNTP have developed extension > mechanism overtime: > However, some have not. Multiple versions of NTP exist, but backward compatibility is complete and there are no named extensions. FTP, which is actually older than TCP/IP, likewise has neither extensions nor versioning: new commands have been added and older ones have become unnecessary, but that's all. Gopher+ was backward compatible with Gopher, but was never widely adopted. The principle is always the same: the client invoke a well known server > command to list the server capabilities. The client can then use these > extensions in coordination with the server. > Note however that this is not normally bilateral. There is no way (like Telnet WILL/WONT/DO/DONT) for the server to find out what extensions the client supports. Consequently, servers either have to exploit no client extensions, or just use whatever client extensions they would like, and if clients don't support them, tough turkey for the user. The spirit of Gemini is that that clients and servers agree because they all voluntarily comply with the current standard. (Solderpunk keeps talking about a permanent freeze, but _haud credo_. What matters is that evolution of the protocol document stays controlled and that software authors have no incentive to ignore it.) (The .sig below was chosen at random.) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan at ccil.org The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague. --Edsger Dijkstra -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/attachments/20201219/6880 48ff/attachment.htm>
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