From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/88722 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eric Abrahamsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2019 09:06:12 +0800 Message-ID: <87mug6klq3.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> References: <87o90mm4x2.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> <87blwmuh6j.fsf@dick.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="243926"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/27.0.50 (gnu/linux) To: ding@gnus.org Original-X-From: ding-owner+M36926@lists.math.uh.edu Mon Aug 19 03:07:02 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: ding-account@gmane.org Original-Received: from lists1.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.208]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1hzW8T-0011GS-S6 for ding-account@gmane.org; Mon, 19 Aug 2019 03:07:01 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu) by lists1.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1hzW87-00058k-FZ; Sun, 18 Aug 2019 20:06:39 -0500 Original-Received: from mx2.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.33]) by lists1.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1.3:TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1hzW81-000560-FO for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Sun, 18 Aug 2019 20:06:33 -0500 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.231.51]) by mx2.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1.2:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1hzW80-0006wD-51 for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Sun, 18 Aug 2019 20:06:33 -0500 Original-Received: from 195-159-176-226.customer.powertech.no ([195.159.176.226] helo=blaine.gmane.org) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1hzW7w-000455-Q5 for ding@gnus.org; Mon, 19 Aug 2019 03:06:30 +0200 Original-Received: from list by blaine.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1hzW7u-0010fH-ID for ding@gnus.org; Mon, 19 Aug 2019 03:06:26 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Cancel-Lock: sha1:6O2G0mm1YdGtnm3g6PtQ+HVllQQ= List-ID: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:88722 Archived-At: dick.r.chiang@gmail.com writes: > Disclaimer: I want to be brief, not abrasive (but the two are often conflated). Thanks for the comments! And don't worry about tone. > The monograph is half "Tao of Gnus", quarter "basic commands", and quarter > "setup detail". Yup, that was the idea. Basically this would be the section users read right before they hit M-x gnus for the first time. > The "Tao" part can be much shorter. For instance: > >> Gnus treats mail and news uniformly as categorized message queues. One can >> think of a mail folder or mailing list as isomorphic to a newsgroup. >> Threads are identical in both realms. Traditionally, however, users prefer >> keeping "TODO" mails at the top of their inbox, and here the mail-news >> abstraction fails as Gnus *qua* newsreader does its best to hide what's >> already been seen. To me, this is the sort of thing that the Gnus manual already has plenty of. If I were a new user, this would make very little sense to me, and wouldn't be particularly helpful. > Boom, onto the next chapter: "Basic Commands" should essentially be a `C-h m` > dump of the Gnus keymap, with very little prose. > > Setup options (every sentence ending in "see XXX") need not be mentioned, as > they all get their own chapters. > > One attracts users by making things easy, not boring. Your monograph contains > a level of detail that's not appreciable until users actually start using Gnus. The idea was exactly to mix some concept with some detailed keybindings, so that the user could at least truck around the *Group* and *Summary* buffers and feel like they knew where they were at. A dump of "C-h m" sounds like the perfect way to drive away new users :) Let's see what other people say!