Re: [dev] Suckless operating system

Quoth Ethan Grammatikidis:
> On 15 Jun 2010, at 11:24, Nick wrote:
> > Because that way you can do content negotiation. Granted, that isn't
> > much used today,
>
> Why not? With more international businesses than ever on the web and
> the internet spread further over the globe than ever before, and with
> content negotiation having been around for such a long time, why is it
> hardly used? Perhaps because it sucks?

I always presumed it was because web browsers never really gave it a
meaningful interface. Same, for that matter, with HTTP basic
authentication.
 
> > and it would make sense to make content-type
> > optional, but I like the idea of content negotiation. Being able to
> > e.g. get the original markdown for the content of a page, without
> > the HTML crap, navigation etc, would be really nice in a lot of
> > cases.
>
> Maybe, but I doubt the majority of web designers would like you
> looking at their source, as simple as it might be, and the likelihood
> of big businesses letting you get at their web page sources seems very
> low. Maybe I'm just terminally cynical.

Sigh, no, you're largely right. Though wikipedia or some of the more
open blog engines are examples where this is less likely to be true.

> > I get the impression the W3C expected content negotiation to
> > be used a lot more when they wrote the HTTP 1.1 spec.
>
> Erm, yeah. The W3C seems to have expected a lot of things would be
> practical and useful.

Well, I prefer the W3C's vision of the web to the one designers and
marketers have created.

Incidentally, can anyone recommend a good gopher client? I missed it
the first time 'round, and I'd be curious to see a different
paradigm of web type thing.