I've recently gotten hooked to the Gemini protocol. This obsession came about after I learned about the Tildeverse over XMPP, registered for tilde.pink, and started playing with the public_gemini directory. If you can write basic Markdown, you can write Gemtext with minimal differences. It is really easy to create a capsule (webpage) from nothing. As such, I loved it except for one small nitpick.

I am really used to using scripts for fun behaviour. For example, on my own webpage, I usually greet newcomers using their time of day instead of simple greetings like "good to see you" or "hello". I don't have a clue why I prefer this other than "it's funny". However, Gemini doesn't provide any means of scripting in their spec. As such, you cannot script Gemini capsules on most Gemini servers, including gmid which is used by tilde.pink.

I was thinking of solutions for this, and I concluded that I should probably look into templating and scheduled builds for this task. My reasoning for this is that it provides the illusion of scripted behaviour while remaining statically built for the small web. This could also be used in many Gemini servers as it creates Gemtext files from templates. This would make Gemini scriptable while retaining it's purpose.

I'm planning to design this in Ruby, mostly as an influence from Jekyll. If anyone wants to talk about it more with me, please let me know, as I am open to ideas. I also plan to write a post about the Tildeverse when I'm well rested. More specifically, about my thoughts regarding the community.

#tildeverse #tilde #geminiprotocol #web #programming #ruby #jekyll #tech #technology #opensource #SmallWeb