💾 Archived View for bbs.geminispace.org › u › skyjake › 6229 captured on 2023-11-04 at 16:09:45. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: "How does Gemini differ from the Nex protocol? I see Nex..."
I would describe Nex as a stripped-down Gopher. Comparing to Gemini:
2023-10-15 · 3 weeks ago
Nex also can support a cgi-like page though without input parameters I guess, this is not currently available, but the author is planing to support some kind of page generation or has already implemented that. Also there is an option to provide input data but that is not in the nex protocol but uses an additional socket connect, there is an example of that on the nightfall.city site
otherwise the protocol reminds me of HTTP/0.9 which did not use headers yet, so there was no content-type
Thanks for the comments everyone. Since it doesn’t use TLS, I should probably have asked how it compares to Spartan, although then this wouldn’t be the right forum for that.
The hidden file .directory-listing-okay in Gemini does what I need as far as directory listings are concerned. So based on my understanding now, Nex would have to have a very simple server executable for me to justify running it.
That said, nightfall does have a gorgeous looking Nex page. The links to the files and directories are often followed by a comment. In Gemini, a link would be replaced with such text rather than complimented.
Well, the protocol is completely separate from the "simple server executable". Whether a server is just a simple executable is dependent on the server software, not the protocol. Anyways, yes, it is just a "simple server executable", both my server and the ones that are provided by nightfall. You run it and it just serves whatever is in your nex folder.
As for the way nightfall's interface is displayed, that is how all nex sites display. That's why I said the presentation of nex is different from gemini. Gemini is more focused on being a hypertext document format, like a very simplified html, while *nex is not.*
Spartan is very different from nex. Spartan has upload and error status codes, etc. That's why Nex is more like a simplified gopher without all the cruft.
You can find nex's spec here. There is also an http version if you just replace "nex://" with "http://" in the link below.
The hidden file .directory-listing-okay in Gemini does what I need as far as directory listings are concerned.
This is not actually part of Gemini, this is a functionality of your server software. I might be nitpicking here, but it's an important distinction because you won't find this feature in every gemini server software.
2023-10-16 · 3 weeks ago
How does Gemini differ from the Nex protocol? I see Nex used for directory listings and serving files. Gemini seems to do this and much more. Is it as simple as that?