💾 Archived View for station.martinrue.com › dimitrigorvachov › ef3f0acd68d64e6896d7933132c17a29 captured on 2023-09-28 at 17:28:38. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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so I've been thinking about something. We have the web which has things like google, facebook, reddit, and so on. We also have gemini, which has station and other simple sites. Why don't we have a protocol for apps. Think of the web or gemini but used only for applications. We'd have automatic cross platform support for basically native like apps, file system access to a certain extent, and a place to post your apps and not have them taken down because your app doesn't meet the requirements of the apple or google stores
2 years ago
it's a good post by Solderpunk but it kind of tailors to people who use CLIs. which is fine, there are many, but then again it's not fine. maybe I'll throw out a few ideas on antenna. I'll think about it · 2 years ago
Solderpunk talked about using Gemini for Applications in this post. I actually talked with him recently, and he mentioned that he was disappointed that more experimentation wasn't done in this area. Hopefully in the future more people experiment with this. Here's the article: gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/users/solderpunk/gemlog/a-vision-for-gemini-applications.gmi · 2 years ago
I suppose if your heart is set on "web apps," though, your best bet at bridging that gap might be to just create a WASM VM of some kind and go from there. If your web apps are all WASM-based, you can ignore most of the web standards that existed before people decided they wanted the browser to essentially be an operating system in its own right. Even that's a non-trivial undertaking, of course. Something like uxn or mu might be a better choice as a foundation for a solo developer. · 2 years ago
I was going to leave this alone, but I see @defunct has more or less said what I was thinking. (Also, web browsers these days are basically a complicated VMs that didn't realize they were going to be VMs until it was too late to redesign the standards governing them. You'd do better to start with a well-designed VM in mind and go from there, IMO. I don't think slapping a simple protocol onto a complicated pile of questionable decisions makes a whole lot of sense.) FWIW, I do think an "app store" interface with easily-added and created repositories could meet user needs without undue centralization. Especially if there is no default repository. · 2 years ago
Well you can build simple applications in Gemini - server applications, like Station or Astrobotany. The Gemini client provides the UI and the server does the logic. It is pretty constrained to small snippets of text, with server generated links, but it is flexible enough to cover a variety of potential applications. But it is sor t of an abuse in my opinion of a URL query string to use as a text submission mechanism, but it sort of works for very simple apps · 2 years ago
@marginalia I think the implication is that a protocol or virtual machine can make creating and hosting an app easier and provide a common interface, like a browser, so you don't have to do all the legwork. Being in software development, this isn't how things work usually. having a common denominator like iOS and the app store usually complicates things for development imho · 2 years ago
Why not just host your app yourself? Why do you need a store? A store implies a degree of centralization. It implies someone else gets to determine the criteria for your app (which isn't just a hypothetical, the real app stores have rules on things such as language, political themes, nudity, etc.) The great part about gemini is that it has no such central authority. You can just set up your server and do whatever you want. · 2 years ago
I don't get it. A protocol is a transport. Gemini is just a definition of how to request and transport a resource. http does the same thing. An app is completely separate from a protocol. It's a visual solution to a problem (sort of) and sometimes you have a backend, sometimes you don't. Creating a protocol doesn't help you at all, a virtual machine would help, like already suggested · 2 years ago
@lykso I basically mean having an App Store for progressive web apps that would have its own protocol similar to Gemini. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say · 2 years ago
Okay, you said "protocol," but it sounds like what you want is a cross-platform virtual machine with a built-in app store. · 2 years ago