Re: mail-sources versus select-methods

[Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com>]

david.goldberg6@verizon.net (Dave Goldberg) writes:

>> david.goldberg6@verizon.net (Dave Goldberg) writes:
>>>> Leonidas Tsampros <ltsampros@upnet.gr> writes:
>>>>> Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:
>>>>>> Undoubtedly an incredibly naive question but why would one use
>>>>>> mail-sources over select-methods?
>>>>>> 
>>> 
>>> One doesn't.  They are two complementary things.
>>> 
>> Hi,
>
>> But one can. And I'm not clear what is best.
>
> Apples and oranges.  The two are complementary - there's no
> competition here.

But there is. You can achieve  the same thing using both. My Q is what s
best and why.

>
>> One does not have to set up mail-sources. It can all be done in
>> secondary methods - e.g see the nnimap select-method in the manual for
>> gmail:-
>
> That's right, you don't need to set up mail-sources if you're not sucking mail
> into a local back end.  If you are, then you need to tell Gnus from
> where to get

And you dont need to if you are either.

> it.  That's the mail-source.  The select method in that case would be the actual
> back end into which you're putting the mail.
>
>>      (setq gnus-select-method
>>            '(nnimap "imap.gmail.com"))
>
> Right so here you're talking IMAP, over the network, and interacting directly
> with the server.  You don't need a mail-source because you're not pulling that
> mail into some local folder.  If you did you might use nnml or similar as the
> back end (select method).

You can set up a mail-source with imap too. And a secondary select with
local backend too. I dont see where I ever "need" a mail-source which is
the core of my query really. Up until recently I never set mail-source
and am only doing so now because of issues I had with nnml as a
secondary select.