Hackers' Pub

Syntax	Description	Examples
`"` keyword `"`	Finds the string within quotes, including spaces. Case-insensitive. (Escape quotes inside with `\"`)	`"Hackers' Pub"`
`from:` handle	Finds content written by the specified user.	`from:hongminhee` `from:hongminhee@hollo.social`
`lang:` ISO 639-1	Finds content written in the specified language.	`lang:en`
`#` tag	Finds content with the specified tag. Case-insensitive.	`#HackersPub`
condition condition	Finds content that satisfies both conditions on either side of the space (logical AND).	`"Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
condition `OR` condition	Finds content that satisfies at least one of the conditions on either side of the OR operator (logical OR).	`#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
`(` condition `)`	Combines the operators within the parentheses first.	`(#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" OR "Hackers Pub") lang:en`

Adam Nelson @adam@nels.onl

8/30/2025, 7:57:58 PM

Public

I've been trying to design a new federated chat protocol, Chatterbox, that improves on Matrix and XMPP and is simpler to use and implement than either.

But, after a lot of work designing a WebSocket+Protobuf API, I've had to ask myself... why isn't this just REST?

https://adam.nels.onl/blog/why-not-rest/

I really don't want to make it just a plain old boring REST API, but if I want this to be easy to understand and implement, it seems like the obvious choice. Am I just overcomplicating it?

Feedback is appreciated, if you have any.

Why not REST? - Adam Nelson

When writing a README for Chatterbox (my attempt at a new federated chat protocol), I wanted to explain all of my design choices. One that quickly gave me trouble was the API’s format: it uses Protobu…

adam.nels.onl · Adam Nelson

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