From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/75406 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Sivaram Neelakantan Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: Just shoot me now Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:24:45 +0530 Message-ID: <82r5d9ajlm.fsf@gmail.com> References: <87bp4es21b.fsf@marauder.physik.uni-ulm.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1293033327 18902 80.91.229.12 (22 Dec 2010 15:55:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:55:27 +0000 (UTC) To: ding@gnus.org Original-X-From: ding-owner+M23758@lists.math.uh.edu Wed Dec 22 16:55:24 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ding-account@gmane.org Original-Received: from util0.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.18]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PVR2B-0004Hq-1c for ding-account@gmane.org; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:55:23 +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 1PVR1w-0005rJ-2S; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 09:55:08 -0600 Original-Received: from mx1.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.32]) by util0.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1PVR1t-0005r1-U2 for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 09:55:05 -0600 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.231.51]) by mx1.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1PVR1s-0004rg-Mr for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 09:55:05 -0600 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1PVR1o-0004II-Uw for ding@gnus.org; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:55:00 +0100 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PVR1o-00043P-09 for ding@gnus.org; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:55:00 +0100 Original-Received: from 122.179.38.229 ([122.179.38.229]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:54:59 +0100 Original-Received: from nsivaram.net by 122.179.38.229 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:54:59 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 83 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 122.179.38.229 User-Mail-Address: nsivaram.net@gmail.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.110011 (No Gnus v0.11) Emacs/23.2 (windows-nt) Cancel-Lock: sha1:5lepBk6RmZQIp4jBz3H3CQ6mBVM= X-Spam-Score: 0.2 (/) X-Spam-Report: SpamAssassin (3.3.1 2010-03-16) analysis follows Bayesian score: 0.0000 Ham tokens: 0.000-1466--3176h-0s--0d--H*u:Emacs, 0.000-1425--3088h-0s--0d--H*u:Gnus, 0.000-905--1961h-0s--0d--HX-Spam-Relays-External:80.91.229.12, 0.000-905--1961h-0s--0d--H*RU:sk:1AlnuQ-, 0.000-905--1961h-0s--0d--HX-Injected-Via-Gmane:gmane.org Spam tokens: 0.987-1--0h-1s--0d--HX-Spam-Relays-External:sk:1PVR1o-, 0.987-1--0h-1s--0d--H*RU:sk:1PVR1o-, 0.987-1--0h-1s--0d--incantation, 0.869-408--1929h-32534s--0d--English, 0.859-56--515h-7947s--0d--Airport Autolearn status: no 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is freemail (nsivaram.net[at]gmail.com) 0.0 DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED No valid author signature, adsp_override is CUSTOM_MED -0.0 T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay domain 1.2 RCVD_NUMERIC_HELO Received: contains an IP address used for HELO -1.9 BAYES_00 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 0 to 1% [score: 0.0000] 0.9 NML_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED ADSP custom_med hit, and not from a mailing list 0.0 T_TO_NO_BRKTS_FREEMAIL T_TO_NO_BRKTS_FREEMAIL List-ID: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:75406 Archived-At: On Wed, Dec 22 2010,Tommy Kelly wrote: [snipped 19 lines] > Exactly. So I reckon that in my case at least part of the reason is > that the split documentation is *in general* sufficiently tough-going, > and enough of it is simply obscure to anyone not already familiar with > what it's saying, that I (quite reasonably) end up not trusting it and > not reverting to it even when it would in fact help me. (Hence, for > example, me googling for info on syntax tables rather than going first > to the emacs help). Funnily, mail splitting worked for me the first time I tried apart from a few minor misses. But mine were simple ones (setq nnmail-split-methods '(("sas-l" "^Subject:.*SAS-L*") ;; ("ctan-ann" "^From:.*ctan-ann*") ("mail.misc" ""))) is all I did. > > Some of the documentation reminds me of signage in London Heathrow > Airport. Once you know where you're going, the signs make perfect > sense. Right, you're on the same path as me. Things don't make sense for a long time and then suddenly everything falls into place. Group Parameters, for some reason took me a long time to get sorted. But the documentation is ummm....very clear now. WhyTF, I didn't understand it the first time around or for that matter many other times before, I don't know. On a few topics, I go through searching-for-lightswitch-in-the-dark stumbles. Read the stuff in the manual and try the cryptic incantation (was Lars drunk when he wrote that?) ;) Doesn't work Google and try again with someone's random code on the same thingy it works; I read the documentation again tweak it based on what I *think* is the understanding of what it should do works again reread the documentation; fcuk, it makes perfect sense now 2 days later,completely forget how I went from noob to semi literate guy on the topic. This prevents me with making any constructive suggestion on how to make the documentation better. Other than "Documentation is/was not clear" which only serves to exasperate the developers. Of course, the fault is mostly mine that I make feeble attempts at learning elisp. Hopefully, that and a modicum of understanding of the English language is all that is needed. > > But I think if we keep chipping away -- and with occasional > assistance from the ueber-coders (genuflects in Andreas's direction > :-p ) -- we'll come up with some useful improvements. Look, if you're using Gnus,then you're already tagged as a weirdo in office. :-) It's unlikely that a text based mail/news reader is going to win new converts. All I got for my personal efforts in using Gnus is just that; personal satisfaction of working with large number of articles and mailing lists without getting overloaded. Not one bloke expressed interest in it apart from "you still working on DOS?" (white on black Gnus) "Is that Pine/Unix?" "What is a newsreader?" "why is there no colour like MSLookout?" What I'm saying is, 6 months into this Gnus, you're likely to think that documentation is doing just fine. :) sivaram --