Re: emacs.gnus

[kai.grossjohann@gmx.net (Kai Großjohann)]

Hanak David <dhanak@inf.bme.hu> writes:

> On Sun, 08 Jun 2003, Kai Großjohann wrote:
>
>> I haven't tested it, only skimmed the source.  It looks way cool.  Do
>> you have paperwork on file?  It would be just dandy if it could be
>> incorporated.
>
> I'm glad you liked it.  But what do you exactly mean by "paperwork on
> file"?  Do you need my official permission to incorporate my patch?  If
> this mail is enough, you have it.

The FSF wants to have a copyright assignment for everything that is
part of Emacs.  This way, when somebody violates the GPL, the FSF can
defend it.  I understand that if many people hold the copyright for
pieces of Emacs, then those people would have to cooperate to defend
the copyright.

>> One minor thing: it seems that the function has a similar purpose as
>> other backend functions, which are conventionally called
>> nnchoke-request-foo or nnchoke-retrieve-bar, it seems.  Also, I
>> wonder if you used the same mechanism as for the other backend
>> functions?  If not, it might be useful to do that.
>
> I'm not very familiar with the interior design of Gnus, so I didn't notice
> the request and retreive functions.  If you feel that a name like that
> would suit your taste (or Gnus) better, go ahead, rename it.

He he, I was hoping I could be lazy and let you rename it :-)

> But again, I fail to understand what do you mean by the "same
> mechanism as for the other backend functions".  I admit that I took
> the name and docstring of nnml-ignore-active-file from
> nnfolder-ignore-active-file, because I felt they express something
> very similar, but I might be wrong at that, too.

As an example, here is how Gnus invokes nnchoke-request-article:

(defun gnus-request-article (article group &optional buffer)
  "Request the ARTICLE in GROUP.
ARTICLE can either be an article number or an article Message-ID.
If BUFFER, insert the article in that group."
  (let ((gnus-command-method (gnus-find-method-for-group group)))
    (funcall (gnus-get-function gnus-command-method 'request-article)
	     article (gnus-group-real-name group)
	     (nth 1 gnus-command-method) buffer)))

You have a function gnus-group-article-list which is intended to do
the same, but it uses a different mechanism.  For example, the
variable gnus-command-method is special and referenced in a number of
places, so it's probably useful to let-bind it for
gnus-group-article-list, as well (instead of method).  And you don't
use gnus-get-function to find the right function to invoke.

It might be possible to slightly tweak the documentation for
nnml-ignore-active file to make it clear that any non-nil value is
not sufficient, it has to be t according to your code.  Or maybe
change the code instead :-)

I hope I'm not offending you with this stuff, I think you have a
really great idea here and it seems you could implement it without
loss in efficiency, which is quite nifty.  I'm just talking about
little technicalities, not intending to belittle your achievement.
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