mbays mbays at sdf.org
Fri Sep 10 16:44:40 BST 2021
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[spartan]
=: /link Enter your input
I honestly think this is a flat-out improvement over gemini's "10
INPUT" status (and I rarely say that). It avoids an extra round trip,
allows for better client UX, and is probably more intuitive.
We could actually get something similar in gemini by adopting the following convention: a link with a gemini uri ending in a bare '?' should have the query component filled in by the user. So following a link```=
/link? Enter your input```in an interactive client would prompt the user for input *before* making a request to the server.
Pros:* Avoids a round-trip.* Clients could render such links differently, e.g. with an inline text box.* Doesn't break clients who ignore the convention, as long as the server returns 10 to a request with empty query.
Cons:* It's surprising; doesn't contradict the gemini spec, but impossible to guess from it.* It's arguably an abuse of uris, since it's adding new semantics to an uri beyond its meaning as a resource identifier.* Because of the need to return 10 on an empty query for compatibility, there's no way to represent actually empty input.* It's not impossible that such an uri could have some specific meaning on some server. However, I think this is unlikely; certainly every CGI implementation I've seen won't differentiate between "/link" and "/link?". But technically they are different URIs which could point to different resources.
Any thoughts? I'm not sure myself whether this is a good idea, but cutting down on that unnecessary round trip seems very appealing.
Anyone know of anything this would break? Is adding such additional semantics to uris a route to extensibility hell?
Regarding the "empty input" problem: the neatest solution would be to always terminate a user input query component with a newline. But it's probably too late to introduce that as a convention.-------------- next part --------------A non-text attachment was scrubbed...Name: signature.ascType: application/pgp-signatureSize: 195 bytesDesc: not availableURL: <https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/attachments/20210910/fca4bc5f/attachment.sig>