Unadorned Gemtext instead of syndication formats

[Jacob Moody]

I talked about this a bit on #gemini but though I could collect some of 
my points here for posterity.

On 9/8/20 12:31 PM, easeout at tilde.team wrote:
> RSS and Atom are well-supported formats. They are XML, but you can
> probably import a parser / generator rather than having to write one
> yourself.

Part of the beauty of gemini to me is that there is really no bar to 
entry in terms of requirements of what the system has to have before you 
start. There is tls but I think having this encryption requirement is 
more then reasonable(even if I have reservations on the design of tls). 
The requirements on using something that uses XML would limit the 
ecosystems that gemini could exist on. I loved seeing the adaption in 
otherwise limited software stacks like plan9, in which the complexity of 
things like xml parsing has prevented a readily usable library to exist 
on the platform.

> This proof of concept demonstrates that any Gemini page can already be
> treated like a feed. This means that, if you don't mind not
> participating in the broader internet feed reader ecosystem, and you
> don't mind the occasional page redesign creating noise in subscription
> results, you don't have to make a feed file at all. Syndication is
> zero-cost.

This is fantastic. With just one page could be used for both a human 
readable index as well as something like a feed. Having a single page 
for both I think is really in the spirit of how I interpreted this 
protocol. The fact that you could whip up something this small to 
process feeds like is a testament to the simplicity of this type of 
system already.

> Gemtext authors could feel like they are not burdened with creating a
> feed file if browsers, feed readers, and aggregators allowed subscribing
> to Gemtext pages directly. When as an author you understand that a feed
> file is unnecessary, the pressure to create a feed file is lifted. But
> for that to happen, you have to see direct Gemtext subscription working
> in the wild. One way that could work is for a browser to have a way to
> treat a bookmark like a feed subscription. I also think if CAPCOM would
> accept Gemtext pages as a feed URL option, that would go a long way.

I don't think something like this would stop people from using something 
like atom or so on as their own feed system, which I find more then 
fine. If servers would like to, they could even offer an automated way 
of creating those types of feeds based on something like the Gemtext 
implementation. I would consider this type of feature to evolve over 
time for which ever feed system is chosen regardless. For me personally 
I think this satisfies the 'complexity when you want it and none if you 
dont' attitude that I find attractive. What I am trying to avoid here is 
the expectation that servers need to provide an xml based feed and the 
expectation that clients should parse it.

Thanks,
Moody