Auto-slave gnusae?

Auto-slave gnusae?

[Dave Abrahams]

Just reading through the Gnus manual and noticed that we can get into
trouble by starting two non-slave Gnusae at once:
[[info:gnus#Slave%20Gnusae][info:gnus#Slave Gnusae]]

So, shouldn't `M-x gnus' automatically dispatch to `gnus-slave' in that
case?

-Dave

Re: Auto-slave gnusae?

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Dave Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com> writes:

> Just reading through the Gnus manual and noticed that we can get into
> trouble by starting two non-slave Gnusae at once:
> [[info:gnus#Slave%20Gnusae][info:gnus#Slave Gnusae]]
>
> So, shouldn't `M-x gnus' automatically dispatch to `gnus-slave' in that
> case?

There are legitimate reasons to use two separate Gnus instances -- for
instance, if you want to "throw away" the reading results for some
reason or other.

Besides, I'm not sure we could reliably detect this situation.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Re: Auto-slave gnusae?

[Dave Abrahams]

on Fri Feb 05 2016, Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi-AT-gnus.org> wrote:

> Dave Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com> writes:
>
>> Just reading through the Gnus manual and noticed that we can get into
>> trouble by starting two non-slave Gnusae at once:
>> [[info:gnus#Slave%20Gnusae][info:gnus#Slave Gnusae]]
>>
>> So, shouldn't `M-x gnus' automatically dispatch to `gnus-slave' in that
>> case?
>
> There are legitimate reasons to use two separate Gnus instances -- for
> instance, if you want to "throw away" the reading results for some
> reason or other.

Sure, but that doesn't seem like a good default, does it?  You could
choose it explicitly.

> Besides, I'm not sure we could reliably detect this situation.

Look for a dribble file or something similar?

-- 
-Dave

Re: Auto-slave gnusae?

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Dave Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com> writes:

>> Besides, I'm not sure we could reliably detect this situation.
>
> Look for a dribble file or something similar?

A dribble file might be an indication...

But anyway, I'm not sure that this is something that should be done.
I'm often ssh-ing in from somewhere to read news on my home machine, and
starting a Gnus works just fine, even if one is already running.  You
just ... have to be careful not to let the older one overwrite the state
created by the new one.

But I guess that's what's Gnus slaves do, anyway...  But will the
"other" running Gnus detect the slave data automatically without doing
anything?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Re: Auto-slave gnusae?

[Dave Abrahams]

on Sun Feb 07 2016, Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi-AT-gnus.org> wrote:

> Dave Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com> writes:
>
>>> Besides, I'm not sure we could reliably detect this situation.
>>
>> Look for a dribble file or something similar?
>
> A dribble file might be an indication...
>
> But anyway, I'm not sure that this is something that should be done.
> I'm often ssh-ing in from somewhere to read news on my home machine,
> and starting a Gnus works just fine, even if one is already running.
> You just ... have to be careful not to let the older one overwrite the
> state created by the new one.

Someone like you (meaning, just you) knows exactly how to do that
because they're familiar with all of the state management Gnus does.  I
think “ordinary users” shouldn't be expected to figure that out.

> But I guess that's what's Gnus slaves do, anyway...  But will the
> "other" running Gnus detect the slave data automatically without doing
> anything?

Only Lars can say!

-- 
-Dave

Re: Auto-slave gnusae?

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Dave Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com> writes:

>> But I guess that's what's Gnus slaves do, anyway...  But will the
>> "other" running Gnus detect the slave data automatically without doing
>> anything?
>
> Only Lars can say!

I haven't used the Gnus slave in decades.  :-)  But I think you're
right -- Gnus should start in slave mode if it manages to detect another
non-slave Gnus running.  Could you report this with `M-x
report-emacs-bug' as a wishlist item?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Re: Auto-slave gnusae?

[Dave Abrahams]

on Mon Feb 08 2016, Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi-AT-gnus.org> wrote:

>>> But I guess that's what's Gnus slaves do, anyway...  But will the
>>> "other" running Gnus detect the slave data automatically without doing
>>> anything?
>>
>> Only Lars can say!
>
> I haven't used the Gnus slave in decades.  :-)  But I think you're
> right -- Gnus should start in slave mode if it manages to detect another
> non-slave Gnus running.  Could you report this with `M-x
> report-emacs-bug' as a wishlist item?

Done!

-- 
-Dave

Re: Auto-slave gnusae?

[Andreas Schwab]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> But I guess that's what's Gnus slaves do, anyway...  But will the
> "other" running Gnus detect the slave data automatically without doing
> anything?

That's the whole point of Gnus slaves.

(gnus) Slave Gnusae

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."