💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › replies › 3845 captured on 2023-12-28 at 17:55:38. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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< Is gemini a read-only protocol?
IMO, the answer is somewhere in between. The input response isn't just for search; it's to enable various kinds of dynamic responses. Things like Spellbinder, or Astrobotany, or a Zork implementation are completely within Gemini's remit.
That said, Gemini requests are intentionally limited in length. They're also fundamentally similar to HTTPS GET requests, in that they don't support an arbitrary payload. They shouldn't be used for creating or editing resources, IMO, and ideally they should be idempotent, though this is not strictly required by the spec, and *some* leeway is fine, particularly behind a client certificate.
It's normally expected that new resources will be posted using another protocol, just as FTP was normally used to update gopherholes back in the pre-encrypt-everything days. SFTP is probably the most generally appropriate protocol, but like here, HTTPS is often used for its versatility. I'd like to see more flexible use made of SFTP in the future.
Comment systems are an edge case. They're *barely* implementable using input responses, but it feels questionable. I can't help but feel there's a better way that hasn't really been explored yet.
Right! I still have a lot of exploration to do to see what people has created. And now that you mention it, I do think there would be some problems implementing comments with gemini, especially when it comes to CSRF.