These technologies could be used to create a valuable network of low-distraction reference resources. They might dodge the Eternal September problem simply due to the the high barrier to entry and win mindshare among sophisticated users by delivering real value.
This would require a community focus on tooling and content.
First, common tools must support Gopher/Gemini output:
* Pandoc
* Template engines like Jinja and Mustache
* Static site generators like Hugo, Gatsby & Jekyll
* Webservers like Apache and Caddy
Then those tools can be used to mirror content like:
* Wikipedia
* ReadTheDocs
* Docsets (eg for Dash)
* HackerNews, Lobste.rs, Reddit?
* RFC archives
* Github/Gitlab repo READMEs
Suddenly you could spend your whole day in pure-text mode and never open a browser that does enough twitter to kill your flow.
There is currently a partial lobste.rs mirror hosted at typed-hole.org over gemini (as well as gopher). Gopher also has gopherpedia which mirrors wikipedia (many clients for gemini also support gopher). While I dont think mirroring should be the end goal, I agree it is a good stepping stone to original content to have , as you put it, low-distraction access to these resources.
Recent work has gone on to allow git cloning over gemini and there is syntax support for the, admittedly minimal, text/gemini format in vim and emacs.
I would love to see pandoc support (and believe someone recently mentioned working on on the mailing list). Great ideas! Pick one and build!
This would require a community focus on tooling and content.
First, common tools must support Gopher/Gemini output:
* Pandoc * Template engines like Jinja and Mustache * Static site generators like Hugo, Gatsby & Jekyll * Webservers like Apache and Caddy
Then those tools can be used to mirror content like:
* Wikipedia * ReadTheDocs * Docsets (eg for Dash) * HackerNews, Lobste.rs, Reddit? * RFC archives * Github/Gitlab repo READMEs
Suddenly you could spend your whole day in pure-text mode and never open a browser that does enough twitter to kill your flow.