From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/81439 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Lars Ingebrigtsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: I can haz cloud idea Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:21:51 +0100 Organization: Programmerer Ingebrigtsen Message-ID: <87mx8elugg.fsf@gnus.org> References: <87fwebnzd8.fsf@gnus.org> <1swr7nl0tf.fsf@voll.uninett.no> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1329664990 21981 80.91.229.3 (19 Feb 2012 15:23:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:23:10 +0000 (UTC) To: ding@gnus.org Original-X-From: ding-owner+M29719@lists.math.uh.edu Sun Feb 19 16:23:09 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 1Rz8bU-0005Lp-3Y for ding-account@gmane.org; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:23:08 +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 1Rz8aS-0002D6-HS; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:22:04 -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 1Rz8aR-0002Cx-99 for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:22:03 -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 1Rz8aP-00028e-9C for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:22:02 -0600 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1Rz8aN-0006li-9e for ding@gnus.org; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:21:59 +0100 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Rz8aM-0004bH-Tb for ding@gnus.org; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:21:58 +0100 Original-Received: from 93-41-188-50.ip82.fastwebnet.it ([93.41.188.50]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:21:58 +0100 Original-Received: from larsi by 93-41-188-50.ip82.fastwebnet.it with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:21:58 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Mail-Followup-To: ding@gnus.org Original-Lines: 43 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 93-41-188-50.ip82.fastwebnet.it Mail-Copies-To: never User-Agent: Gnus/5.130004 (Ma Gnus v0.4) Emacs/24.0.93 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:WXzuVZTfJKb05wqvMmztLHicz98= X-Spam-Score: -1.9 (-) List-ID: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:81439 Archived-At: 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. 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? 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? 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. -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no * Sent from my Rome