[SPEC] Backwards-compatible metadata in Gemini

[John Cowan]

On Thu, Feb 25, 2021 at 5:24 AM Oliver Simmons <oliversimmo at gmail.com>
wrote:

Extensibility *is* an issue with metadata, but this applies to Gemtext
> as a whole due to its nature of being text-based, who's to stop
> someone from creating a new line type that their client understands?
>

Ahhhh, you said in one sentence what took me a whole long email.

By the way, thanks for pointing out the ^^^ in your format; I had forgotten
that in the pile of messages.

> I hadn't thought about that, a very valid point.
> But I think allowing metadata to be mixed in with text, as the other
> format allows, is a bigger drawback than enforcing putting it at the
> end of files and breaking concatenation.
>

Since we are both pro-metadata, can you explain to me your reasons why you
think allowing mixture is bad?  My arguments are: (a) some metadata belongs
at the top for the human's sake, (b) allowing links to carry metadata about
the referent is a Good Thing.  Note also (in case it got lost) that ^^^ is
not valid within ``` blocks, so you still have to do minimal parsing to
find the metadata.

> Look at some recipes on the modern web, or a news article.
> Recipes will have a 'backstory', for some reason Margret's cookies
> will have a few paragraphs explaining how they improved her life and
> how this (bog standard) recipe has descended through her family.
>

It's fluff, but without fluff there would be no Gemini.  :-)



John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
But that, he realized, was a foolish thought; as no one knew better than
he that the Wall had no other side.
        --Arthur C. Clarke, "The Wall of Darkness"
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