Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Peter Mutsaers]

In 5.7 one could send a message in a foreign group with C-cC-c. How it
needs a prefix, otherwise you get a 411 error message (after being
frustrated not being to post my articles, having written them in vain,
I found this out just now). I wonder why? The old behaviour, where
C-cC-c always posts using the current server seems perfectly logical
and reasonable.

-- 
Peter Mutsaers     | Abcoude (Utrecht), | Trust me, I know
peter@mutsaers.com | the Netherlands    | what I'm doing. 

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Kai Großjohann]

You can set gnus-post-method to `current' if you want C-c C-c to
always post to the current server.
kai
-- 
Life is hard and then you die.

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> You can set gnus-post-method to `current' if you want C-c C-c to
> always post to the current server.

Can someone remind me why `current' is not the default?

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Jan Vroonhof]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> > You can set gnus-post-method to `current' if you want C-c C-c to
> > always post to the current server.
> 
> Can someone remind me why `current' is not the default?

Because larsi doesn't want it to be. When I implemented it, it was. Or to
be more correct, the meaning of current was the inverse of what it is
now and Lars "fixed" this :-(.

Jan

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Jan Vroonhof <vroonhof@math.ethz.ch> writes:

> Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:
> 
> > > You can set gnus-post-method to `current' if you want C-c C-c to
> > > always post to the current server.
> > 
> > Can someone remind me why `current' is not the default?
> 
> Because larsi doesn't want it to be.

I know that.  But I'd like Lars to say if it's one of those irrational
"I'm stubborn" moments, or if there are some reasons.  And if it's the
former, when it will go away.  :-)

> When I implemented it, it was. Or to be more correct, the meaning of
> current was the inverse of what it is now

That, on the other hand, is not nice.

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Jan Vroonhof]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> 
> I know that.  But I'd like Lars to say if it's one of those irrational
> "I'm stubborn" moments, or if there are some reasons.  And if it's the
> former, when it will go away.  :-)

Well.. He has had this particular moment for quite a while.. However
he _is_ away now. Does somebody with CVS access feel naughty?

> > When I implemented it, it was. Or to be more correct, the meaning of
> > current was the inverse of what it is now
> 
> That, on the other hand, is not nice.

We seem to interpret the docstring in different ways:

===
If this variable is `current', Gnus will use the "current" select
method when posting.  If it is nil (which is the default), Gnus will
use the native posting method of the server.
===

I read this

current == Current primary select method.
nil = native method of the server BELONGING TO THIS GROUP

i.e. the inverse of what it does now.

Jan

P.S. I am not sure any more exactly how my patch went (I could have
used the 'native' keyword). But it did do the 'right' thing by
default.

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Kai Großjohann]

Jan Vroonhof <vroonhof@math.ethz.ch> writes:

> We seem to interpret the docstring in different ways:
> 
> ===
> If this variable is `current', Gnus will use the "current" select
> method when posting.  If it is nil (which is the default), Gnus will
> use the native posting method of the server.
> ===

Wee.  Hm.  I suggest that `of the server' be deleted.  It was
immediately intuitive to me that setting gnus-post-method to current
means to always use the current server, whereas nil means use the
native server (ie, gnus-select-method).

Or should `posting method of the' be deleted, instead?

kai
-- 
Life is hard and then you die.

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Jack Vinson]

>>>>> "Jan" == Jan Vroonhof <vroonhof@math.ethz.ch> writes:

===
If this variable is `current', Gnus will use the "current" select
method when posting.  If it is nil (which is the default), Gnus will
use the native posting method of the server.
===

Jan> I read this

Jan> current == Current primary select method.
Jan> nil = native method of the server BELONGING TO THIS GROUP

I have never looked at this doc string, but it is rather ambiguous.  It
sounds like "current" should use the select method of the current group
when posting.  But nil makes it sound like it will also use the current
server, not the _primary_ server as Lars intends this to mean.

This gets back to the recent suggestion of someone else to get rid of the
idea of primary, secondary and foreign servers.  A server is a server.  If
I read news from server X, I probably want to post news to server X
(configurable of course).  Why does there need to be a primary server at
all?  

It becomes painfully obvious that there are problems with the current setup
when one attempts to use two different mail servers (one for each mailbox),
instead of one mail server that handles all mailboxes.


-- 
Jack Vinson
Bart: I will not celebrate meaningless milestones. 

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Kai Großjohann]

Kai Großjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE> writes:

> Jan Vroonhof <vroonhof@math.ethz.ch> writes:
> 
> > We seem to interpret the docstring in different ways:
> > 
> > ===
> > If this variable is `current', Gnus will use the "current" select
> > method when posting.  If it is nil (which is the default), Gnus will
> > use the native posting method of the server.
> > ===
> 
> Wee.  Hm.  I suggest that `of the server' be deleted. [...]
> Or should `posting method of the' be deleted, instead?

Or we could change `native posting method of the server' to `posting
method of the native server'.

kai
-- 
Life is hard and then you die.

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Greg Stark]

Jan Vroonhof <vroonhof@math.ethz.ch> writes:

> Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:
> 
> > > You can set gnus-post-method to `current' if you want C-c C-c to
> > > always post to the current server.
> > 
> > Can someone remind me why `current' is not the default?
> 
> Because larsi doesn't want it to be. When I implemented it, it was. Or to
> be more correct, the meaning of current was the inverse of what it is
> now and Lars "fixed" this :-(.

Gnus has behaved the way it does now for a long long time. I once implemented
a backend that can handle posting but isn't a news server. I spent days trying
to unravel the logic Gnus used to decide how to post. Lars ended up making a
change that didn't fix the problem and neither of us seemed to be able to
really figure out what effect the change had. I gave up and just told people
to press C-u before posting.

That was a while ago though, I'm sure the code is more complicated now.

Jack Vinson <vinson@unagi.cis.upenn.edu> writes:

> This gets back to the recent suggestion of someone else to get rid of the
> idea of primary, secondary and foreign servers.  A server is a server.  If
> I read news from server X, I probably want to post news to server X
> (configurable of course).  Why does there need to be a primary server at
> all?  

(ding) Gnus was ahead of its time and Lars made a lot of perceptive design
choices when he started it but some of the datedness still shows. 

At the time (ding) Gnus was started few news readers could handle more than
one server, you used your site's NNTP server and if you wanted more groups you
requested the administrators get a feed for them. If you're browsing servers
that aren't your primary server they're probably servers belonging to some
other organization and you shouldn't be using them to post, you should post to
your server and let it popagate the article.

At the time there was still such a thing as a local news spool. Local news
spools are truly a rare species today, especially with the advent of the agent
style of newsreader. But once they were common for low bandwidth links and
UUCP links since you could have it fetch articles in batches unattended and
always be able to read news even when the link was down. The point is that you
can't post via a local spool, so even if you're reading from a local spool you
still want to post via the native select method.

These days these models are dated. There are servers out there, I want Gnus to
let me talk to some subset of them. When I request an article from a group I
expect it to get it from that group's server, when I post I expect it to post
to that group's server. If I want that group or that server to delegate to
some other server I would expect to have to set some property on that group or
server. 

-- 
greg

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> > If this variable is `current', Gnus will use the "current" select
> > method when posting.  If it is nil (which is the default), Gnus will
> > use the native posting method of the server.
> > ===
> 
> Wee.  Hm.  I suggest that `of the server' be deleted. 

Yup.  Fix in Pterodactyl Gnus v0.98.1.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> > > Can someone remind me why `current' is not the default?
> > 
> > Because larsi doesn't want it to be.
> 
> I know that.  But I'd like Lars to say if it's one of those irrational
> "I'm stubborn" moments, or if there are some reasons.  And if it's the
> former, when it will go away.  :-)

I think Greg's account of the whole thing makes a whole lot of sense. 

When this whole multiple-server thing was begun, the balkanization of
the nntp world hadn't really gotten under way, and the only real
reason to use multiple news sources was if the local server was really
slow, and you wanted to read from a different server, but still post
from the local server and stuff.  (Because the local server was the
only server where you had posting access.)

These days, there's a gazillion different news servers out there that
carry only slightly intersecting news groups, so I'm changing the
default to `current' in 0.98.1.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Matt Swift]

>>"L" == Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

    L> These days, there's a gazillion different news servers out
    L> there that carry only slightly intersecting news groups, so I'm
    L> changing the default to `current' in 0.98.1.

I'm using "v0.98" according to `M-x gnus-version'.  Is that the same
as the 0.98.1 to which you refer?  I have to use a prefix to post to
this group.  Do you refer to the default value of a variable?  If so,
which one, so that I can check what my value is.

Re: Why need a prefix when sending to a foreign group?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Matt Swift <swift@alum.mit.edu> writes:

> I'm using "v0.98" according to `M-x gnus-version'.  Is that the same
> as the 0.98.1 to which you refer? 

No, the ".1" thing means that the current CVS thing.  I think.
Perhaps I should just make that message say that.  Or just "0.99",
since that's also true.  Yeah.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen