[ih] "How Gopher Nearly Won the Internet" Re: The Rise and Fall of the Gopher Protocol

[Dave Crocker]

On 9/8/2016 2:11 PM, Jack Haverty wrote:
> IMHO, the History of The Internet is full of situations where a piece of
> technology was developed with one use in mind, and then adapted by
> someone else to use in a very different way.


+1

What's most interest about this, to me, is that it represents a balance 
between simplicity and extensibility.  On the average, the designs tend 
to be quite minimalistic.  Rather than try to handle a wide range of 
scenarios that could reasonably be envisioned, they tried to do 
something basic, well.  But with some hooks.  But only some, and again 
basic.

Then when a concrete need was encountered, the an extension or overlay 
was created for that purpose.

Back in the early 90s when folk were trying to compare Internet 
technical work with OSI work, I characterized this as the difference 
between focusing on satisfying people's core, immediate needs, versus 
trying to satisfying people's complete range of imagined, eventual needs.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net