Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual

["Adam Sjøgren" <asjo@koldfront.dk>]

Eric writes:

> Yup, that was me attempting to be amusing.

Yeah - it's a hard edge to walk.

> This is probably me trying to match Lars' voice in the rest of the
> manual. That might be a bad idea. (but nitpicks are welcome!)

Sometimes he also overdid it, I think.

(Oooh, heresy.)

>>>   When sending messages, too, Gnus makes a distinction between news-like
>>>   and mail-like behavior. News servers handle mail delivery themselves,
>>
>> Perhaps "message delivery"?
>
> Or just "delivery"?

Sold.

> Well I'll tell you where I'm aiming! I called it "Don't Panic" because I
> know for a fact that many potential users have considered Gnus, started
> it up, gone "WTF is this how do I even get the thing to open where are
> my goddamn oh to hell with it" and then shut it down for good

It is indeed daunting to get started. That's what the tutorials try to
handle. But it's hard to write a good one.

I agree it would be good to have a more friendly/hand-holdey
introduction right there, in the manual.

> The Gnus manual is very long, and very unintuitive... uh, discursive.
> All of us on this list are way past this point, but I can still remember
> that it took me several days of poking around to understand the
> difference between a mail backend and a mail source.

My biggest problem has always been the general Emacs/elisp nomenclature.
When do I need to put ', when do I need to not, when do I need to go ,()
etc. And then the documentation uses `' around somethings, and other
marks around others.

It's all so simple if you're a lisp weenie. Eventually you become one,
or just try all the combinations until you hit one that work (still my
way of solving it).

But I digress as much as I agree here.

> New users regularly burst into invective about why their groups have
> disappeared. This is an attempt to instill a measure of confidence in
> people who have dived into Gnus, and hit a submerged rock.

A worthy cause! Perhaps only slightly quixotic.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "I forgot you grew up in an Enid Blyton novel."              Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk