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 Gopher Filename Musings, (circumluar.space), 11/29/2018
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This is a technical issue, so it should be over at SDF. But,
I'm not having issues with filenames over at SDF, so it's
here. I'm having issues here at circumlunar, and I'm having
issues over at vernunftzentrum[1]. This is, of course, my
own fault, and not the fault of the servers in any way.

My issue is, on these two systems I didn't bother creating a
year folder. My naming convention sort of depends on that.

User tomasino mentioned a way to have gophernicus sort files
with the date in their name[2]. This is cool, but, what
about systems where they're not using gophernicus? The
solution would have to be adapted. This is probably trivial.

For me personally, this whole filename thing started with my
gopher hole at SDF. That was my first gopher hole, and I had
a lot of fun with it. I wrote little scripts, cgi, and
really got into everything that the server offered. Then, I
branched out and made my own server at jozhaus.com (now
defunct.) On that server I ran motsognir[3]; I liked that it
was actively developed and written in C. The developer was
helpful and easy to communicate with. (motsognir runs the
Red Consensus now, btw.)

Of course, switching to motsognir meant changing my
gophermap format, and adjusting my cgi stuff. The gopher
spec doesn't really define what the gophermap format looks
like on the server side, so I couldn't really complain. No
big deal; I did the work, and kept both gopher holes going.

Then one fine day, SDF decided that they'd break something
in my scripting language packages (php. Sorry.) Thanks SDF!
My gopher hole was suddenly a non-functioning disaster. Just
mine, not anyone else's, because PHP is the red-headed
step-child of SDF (sorry redheads, and step-children.) How
embarrassing. Thankfully, it's gopher, and no one really
cares too much.

I fixed the problems, tried to harass smj, and eventually
gave up on PHP. I decided that since gopher was meant to
serve up directory contents, I'd just stick as close to
possible to that model. By now I had other gopher holes. I
migrated them all to a different setup. Other people were
doing similar things, and a little debate in gopher space
was happening. Some people didn't like the year/month folder
thing. It didn't much matter, because gopher is a pretty
calm sort of place, I think. The filename convention that I
chose was something user papa over at grex came up with. It
relies on the gopher serving up files based on filename vs.
creation date. This would certainly be server-dependent, but
I haven't seen a case where it didn't work.

Comically, SDF's drama continued. One other fine day they
decided to randomly change the gopher server software and it
broke everyone's gopher holes. Thankfully, since I was using
mostly just files in folders, I only had to change a few
characters in my gopher map files to get my file listings
going again. And when SDF changed the server back, I only
had to change a few characters back.

So, that brings be back to circumlunar.space and
cernunftzentrum.de. I went wrong in those two spots because
my filename convention depends on everything in a folder
being from the same year. It does allow for reference years,
but I don't use that... My thinking on those two sites was
this: I wouldn't write much, and I'd filter things through
to the archive folders on a regular basis.

Of course, I wrote a little more than I planned, and I
archived a little less than I should have. Now the end of
the year is here, and I might (gasp!) have out of order
files come Jan 1.

(All this is just brainstorming and memory strolling- I
don't really want to ignite the mild debate over gopher hole
organization. To be honest, I personally enjoy the chaotic
feeling of cruising around gopher space and finding all
sorts of random setups. I like the complicated gophermaps
that people come up with, the ascii artwork, and the sort of
creativity that only constriction can extract from folks.
I'd hate to lose any of that and descend into a pit of raw
efficiency and sanguine, sanitized likeness. I like
1436chan[4], the floodgap mess, suckless, bitreich,
gopher.black, and alexschroeder.ch. I like- no, I love- all
of gopher space, pretty, ugly, complex, simple, and
anything inbetween.)

My solution, for the two offending gopher holes, I think
will be to drop the file naming convention and adopt
tomasino's suggestion. Because, there's no reason all my
gopher holes need to be setup the same way, and it will be
fun to do something different.

[1] gopher://vernunftzentrum.de:70/1/index.gph
[2] gopher://gopher.black:70/1/phlog/20181127-easy-dated-files-for-sorting
[3] gopher://gopher.viste.fr:70/1/
[4] gopher://khzae.net:70/1/chan