it just works

Somewhere in the "postdump" archive page I just added to this capsule, I mention that my rediscovered standard for online tools, sites, etc. is that they must "just work."

They must just WORK - they must do what I employ them to do.

They must JUST work - they must not do anything other than what I employ them to do.

This is vanishingly difficult to get on the Web, I'm discovering.

I got a much clearer picture of just how hard it is by reading the entire Gemini Protocol FAQ over the past few days (yes, all 25k+ words). Having someone spell out for me exactly what the typical HTML site now does just to show itself to the user made me realize how incredibly porous the Web is.

I knew this, but I didn't really think about it before. No one ever laid it out for me in that way. The fact that even on my own website - which is 97.9% pure HTML with a few lines of CSS, one photograph, and one 16x16 pixel icon for flavor - fetches stuff when someone clicks a link to it. You click that third link at the bottom (my site), and my site has to go "yo, pixel icons, cat photo, you're up."

You don't know it does that. You can infer it does that by the fact that you see the icons and (if you click "cat tax"), the photo. But my site could be doing all kinds of stuff on the back end that you couldn't infer from its behavior. It's not, but it could be.

I had this same realization another way when I was looking at Bear Blog's analytics features. I wrote about encountering the free ones in yesterday's gemlog post.

It got worse.

Apparently, I can pay Bear Blog to tell me all kinds of things about my readers. Like:

• Readers currently on site
• Location of reader
• Device of reader
• OS of reader

...I can picture situations in which a developer might want this information for non-nefarious purposes. Such as knowing when one can get away with quirks mode. But I'm creeped out knowing other people can collect this info about me, and I do not want other people to read my work knowing - or suspecting - that I am collecting this information about them.

Any site with this much "analytics" available does not JUST work. It may work, but it is also doing something other than work.

After reading the FAQ, however, I'm more reassured that Gemini "just works." If I want to read text from other humans online, AND NOTHING ELSE, Gemini appears to do that. AND NOTHING ELSE.

I'm still learning, so I'm still cautious. Obviously Gemini is not the answer to all my problems - it's not the answer to all of anyone's problems. (Hey Gemini, where did I leave my car keys?)

But it might be a Space to Write Online that "just works." Like I've been searching for.

https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq.gmi

//drmollytov.flounder.online/postdump.gmi

http://drmollytov.neocities.org