Three possible uses for IRIs

[colecmac at protonmail.com]

> > Yes, and that's unfortunate. But I think it makes sense for the
> > stability of Gemini
> > and the ease of programming to come first.
>
> I'm perplexed that "ease of programming" is considered more important than "ease of adoption."
>
> You mention that not every language supports the libraries needed for internationalized URLs.
>
> What does that lose the project vs. accessibility and broader adoption by non-English-speaking users for who Gemini would be a boon with limited bandwidth and hardware?
>
> I feel like I'm missing something with the emphasis on ease of client implementation over adoption.


I was unsure when I wrote that, and I was worried it would be controversial.
But I still think it makes sense. For Gemini to be accessible, have "broader
adoption", and be "a boon" as you mention, clients need to be easy to write
and maintain. Otherwise, what will these non-English speaking users browse
and serve their content with? A few clients and servers, likely not written
in their native language?

Gemini is a non-commercial hobby project for all the developers I am aware of,
and there are advantages to that. But it also means that if the protocol is hard
to implement, the whole community suffers, because there will be fewer clients
and servers.

The fact that writing URLs for non-English languages is difficult sucks. But
due the complexity, and most of all the fact that this would be a breaking
change, I don't see IRIs as an option.


makeworld


P.S. I'll admit I'm biased. I write more code for Gemini than I do content, and
primarily use my native language English.