From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/81441 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Andy Moreton Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: I can haz cloud idea Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:04:15 +0000 Message-ID: <82fwe6d7j4.fsf@gmail.com> References: <87fwebnzd8.fsf@gnus.org> <1swr7nl0tf.fsf@voll.uninett.no> <87mx8elugg.fsf@gnus.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1329674746 23862 80.91.229.3 (19 Feb 2012 18:05:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:05:46 +0000 (UTC) To: ding@gnus.org Original-X-From: ding-owner+M29721@lists.math.uh.edu Sun Feb 19 19:05:45 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ding-account@gmane.org Original-Received: from util0.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.18]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RzB8q-0002ae-I3 for ding-account@gmane.org; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:05:44 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu) by util0.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1RzB7k-00032w-MF; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:04:36 -0600 Original-Received: from mx2.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.33]) by util0.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1RzB7j-00032q-63 for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:04:35 -0600 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.231.51]) by mx2.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1RzB7h-0002WP-TJ for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:04:34 -0600 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1RzB7f-0002NY-UJ for ding@gnus.org; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:04:31 +0100 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RzB7e-0001sa-6T for ding@gnus.org; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:04:30 +0100 Original-Received: from 82-69-64-228.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk ([82.69.64.228]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:04:30 +0100 Original-Received: from andrewjmoreton by 82-69-64-228.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:04:30 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 60 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 82-69-64-228.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.93 (windows-nt) Cancel-Lock: sha1:AIb2HkBoVqQhn2mXXkRyiSWp6bg= X-Spam-Score: -1.0 (-) List-ID: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:81441 Archived-At: On Sun 19 Feb 2012, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote: > I've been gallivanting around a bit, but I've been thinking a bit more > about the cloud thing. > > So the original idea would be to have a bundle of files distributed via > IMAP, plus diffs to avoid down/uploading so much stuff. When stuff > changes in the bundle, Gnus updates the appropriate files. > > But then I thought: This is kinda like a virtual file system. This > could be implemented along similar lines like Emacs tar support. That > is: We have an in-memory file system "mounted" at (say) ~/.gnus-cloud, > and whenever you edit ~/.gnus-cloud/News/all.SCORE, you're really just > editing the bundle kept in-memory. This means that if you start Gnus > with `M-x gnus-cloud', no files would need to be written to local disk. Surely this is really a lot more like a distributed version control system. After all, you do want to be able to recover the previous state after errors... So keep everything in simple self consistent local files, then use DVCS mechanisms to propagate versions. > So you'd typically have a "real" Gnus somewhere that writes stuff out to > real files. All (or most) of your other Gnus instances would just rely > on the data from the IMAP server. No local files! > > Doesn't that have a clean feeling? Shudder... sounds like "single point of failure" to me. I'd like a local copy of everything, so that when the cloudy stuff isn't working I can ignore it and carry one regardless. > But then, today, I had another thought. > > Gnus setup consists of the .newsrc.eld file, and then a bunch of other > files, like ~/.signature and ~/News/*.SCORE. But... why? > > Why rely on other files for the significant stuff? We control the > vertical and the horizontal, so why not just rethink this? > > The score files, for instance, would more naturally be a structure > stored in .newsrc.eld. Finding out what score files that match what > group is pretty gross code-wise. Why not just make that into a nice > alist and put it in the .newsrc.eld file? Please, please do *not* add more stuff to .newsrc.eld. That file is already over-complex, and trying to do too many things. Keep things simple and unixy - a single responsibility for each file. > The same goes for other obvious stuff like ~/.signature. > > Just put it all in .newsrc.eld, and then distribute that via IMAP. > > Admittedly, I've had a few Italian beers, but it all seems to make sense > if you do it that way. I hope you feel differently when you've sobered up :-) AndyM