Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 18:28:40 -0600
To: gopher@complete.org
Subject: [gopher] Re: Need for protocol changey
References: <20060104230913.GA28833@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG>
 <op.s2wpmtl8vbderv@wybotnnas01-pool0-a247.wybotn.tds.net>
 <20060105231955.GA27530@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG>
From: Jeff <geph@nerdshack.com>
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On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 17:19:55 -0600, Benn Newman  
<newmanbe@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:

> You say there are failings of Gopher+, okay, fine. But what are we  
> actually
> trying to do by making changes to the protocol. How does Gopher benefit
> from having MIME types being so integrated? As John pointed out
> a Tar-gziped file could have any of number of MIME types but you can
> always use extensions. I know that .tar.gz or .tgz means a gziped-tar  
> file.

Without MIME, you're just downloading a 9/Binary file, which may or may  
not have had a tgz 'extension' in the selector.  As Mr. Goerzen wrote, "IE  
sometimes looks at the extension of a file to determine what sort of file  
it is, and this is generally considered a bug."

> If I want to know a file size, there are perfectly good ways to do so in  
> Gopher+
> and in Gopher even. File sizes can be a part of the selectors info text
> ex: 0Super cool  book (book.tgz 4kb)\tboot.tgz\tumn.edu\t7070

There is no standard way to show filesize in gopher.  I don't think  
tacking some stuff in parenthesis to the end of the display string and  
expecting a client to read it as file data is such a good idea.

> Feel free to convince me that protocol changes are needed, I haven't
> stopped listening yet. *grin*

The fact that the foremost gopher/gopher+ developers were interested in  
changing the protocol isn't enough?

-- 
Jeff