From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/57652 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Dale Hagglund Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: new user assistant Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 18:19:28 -0600 Sender: ding-owner@lists.math.uh.edu Message-ID: References: <4nd653nm2i.fsf@lifelogs.com> <4nzn86honu.fsf@lifelogs.com> <4nk6z9bk8n.fsf_-_@lifelogs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1085326947 28779 80.91.224.253 (23 May 2004 15:42:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 15:42:27 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: ding-owner+M6193@lists.math.uh.edu Sun May 23 17:42:20 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.13]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BRv7D-00038M-00 for ; Sun, 23 May 2004 17:42:19 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu) by malifon.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 1BRv6p-0004kc-00; Sun, 23 May 2004 10:41:56 -0500 Original-Received: from util2.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.23]) by malifon.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 1BRgiD-0001dq-00 for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Sat, 22 May 2004 19:19:33 -0500 Original-Received: from justine.libertine.org ([66.139.78.221] ident=postfix) by util2.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1BRgiC-0006TV-Me for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Sat, 22 May 2004 19:19:32 -0500 Original-Received: from main.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.224.249]) by justine.libertine.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C5B073A0259 for ; Sat, 22 May 2004 19:19:31 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from list by main.gmane.org with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BRgiB-0000A1-00 for ; Sun, 23 May 2004 02:19:31 +0200 Original-Received: from fw-edm.yottayotta.com ([198.161.246.2]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 23 May 2004 02:19:30 +0200 Original-Received: from rdh by fw-edm.yottayotta.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 23 May 2004 02:19:30 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-To: ding@gnus.org Original-Lines: 33 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: fw-edm.yottayotta.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:pEz6c6Cyx96XtHTp4iizQKPj1IE= Precedence: bulk Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:57652 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:57652 "Ted Zlatanov" writes: > @title Configuring Gnus for the first time > @node What do you want to do with Gnus? > ... interesting example follows ... As a Gnus user, I doubt I'll do much *writing* of this syntax, but I do like the way it looks. However, if the assistant is meant to help novice users set things up, it should noted that they're the ones who are completely ignorant of the meanings of nnml versus nnmaildir versus nnimap, etc, so a simple menu for the backends actually won't help them very much. How would you write an assistant that tried to either (a) discover what the user might want to do based on environment vars and other pre-exisiting information, or (b) queried the user for such information, and then presented him with a suitable (aye, there's the rub) initial configuration? Do you want this language to be able to handle the maintenance of configurations or just the initial creation of such a configuration? Ie, I have both nnml and nnimap mail groups in my gnus setup. Suppose I used an assistant to set up my first nnml group. Would the language you're thinking about support writing an assistant that would walk me through adding a nnimap mailing group? Dale. (Regarding the XML debate: XML is a wonderful, or at least fully adequate, syntax for data exchange between programs. It is hopeless as a human-input syntax. The fact that people say "oh, its much easier with an xml editor" is proof.)