Gopher protocol reborn, 10:32 pm Wed Nov 4, 2009 @ BoingBoing.net

Ars Technica covers the renaissance of Gopher, the text-based menuing system that
presaged the Web. My first net-industry job was building a gopher  site  (halfway
through, we scrapped it in favor of a website). Good times.

Cameron Kaiser is a programmer on the Overbite Project,which brings better Gopher
support to Firefox versions 2 and 3. When he writes about the relevance of Gopher
in a Web world, he rejects the nostalgia for a "simpler time."

"The misconception that the modern renaissance of Gopherspace is simply a reacti-
on to  'Web overload'  is unfortunately often repeated and,  while  superficially
true,demonstrates a distinct lack of insight," he writes.Instead,Gophers advanta-
ges lie in the structure that its simple menu-based interface imposes on content.

"Gopher is a mind-set on making structure out of chaos," says Kaiser. "Within Go-
pherspace, all Gophers work the same way and all Gophers organize  themselves  a-
round similar menus and interface conceits. It is not only easy and fast to  cre-
ate Gopher content in this structured and organized way,  it is mandatory  by its
nature. Resulting from this mandate is the ability  for users to  navigate  every
Gopher installation in the same way they navigated the one they came from,and the
next one they will go to. Just like it had been envisioned by its creators,Gopher
takes the strict hierarchical nature of a file tree  or  FTP  and  turns it  into
a friendlier format that still gives the fast and predictable responses that they
would get by simply browsing their hard drive.  As  an important  consequence, by
divorcing interface from information,Gopher sites stand and shine on the strength
of their content and not the glitz of their bling."