💾 Archived View for bbs.geminispace.org › u › clseibold › 5991 captured on 2023-11-04 at 15:53:10. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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AuraGem now has a nex server running!
2023-10-07 · 4 weeks ago · 👍 mozz, BBSman
Enlighten us, what is nex?
@Supernova It's another protocol that's in between Gemini and Gopher. It's significantly simpler than Gemini, and doesn't have TLS or input, but it's also significantly simpler to use and program for than Gopher as well. You can find more information at the links below. @skyjake just released the latest version of Lagrange that added support for it.
— nex://nightfall.city/nex/info/
Due to it's simplicity and larger focus on hierarchy/directory structure (similarly to Gopher), I am using it as more of a document listing type thing. In that way it's a bit different than Gemini, which has a larger focus on gemtext as the main hypertext, whereas Gopher and Nex are less hypertextual and more document hosting/listings, if that makes sense.
Please tell me that unlike gemtext, nex protocol uses a consistent line type marker, hopefully a single byte character, to specify the line type that follows! Gemtext has, I think, 7 different line types, and wins the gold medal of inconsistency as to how they are marked, how many characters are used as a marker, whether spaces after the marker are required to be there or are displayed!
Writing a gemini parser or a display engine is about an order of magnutude harder than a simple case statement. Still not that hard, but why, solderpunk, why?
The nex protocol spec is at
— nex://nightfall.city/nex/info/specification.txt
I don't see anything there about line markers or formatting.
Documents and directory listings may be retrieved from nex like this:
echo | auragem.letz.dev 1900
edit: Added simple comand line retrieval example
It looks like directory syntax uses a 3-character link marker '-> ' (with a space). OK, if it's the only one, it's easy enough to sample 3 characters at line start to determine line type...
Here are a couple of more links which discuss nex
— nex://nightfall.city/nex/in/m15o/notes/nex-and-small-net.txt
— nex://nightfall.city/nex/in/m15o/notes/styleguide.txt
@stack Consistency doesn't always mean something is easy to use or even easy to implement. I don't see a problem with the way gemtext does any of its line types
Another document transfer protocol, Gemini is very cool, Gopher gave the inspiration but I don't see sense for yet another one.
2023-10-08 · 4 weeks ago
As I understand it nex originated at Nightfall City, not with Auragem. So you might want to register your complaint there.