Doing some... maintenance

Doing some... maintenance

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Gnus has accrued an awful lot of cruft during the past two, er, three
decades.  There's stuff like nnslashdot, nnultimate and nnlistserv that
probably isn't very useful for anybody any more.

Should I just go ahead and do a deleting spree?

But that's the easy part.  While trying to re-familiarise myself with
how the mm/html rendering worked, I have to admit I stumbled around a
lot in the
mm-text-html-renderer-alist/mm-text-html-washer-alist/mm-text-html-renderer
variables, and the gazillion different functions in mm-view/mm-decode
that render HTML with more than a handful of external renderers, and
more than a handful of different versions of the renderers.

Just to take an example.

But there's probably someone, somewhere, that uses lynx as the renderer,
so touching any of that stuff is probably going to upset someone.

What do all y'all think?

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

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Greg Troxel]

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maybe move the cruft to a contrib directory, so that if it's loved it
can be resurrected easily, and if not it can sit there.  My guess is
that repo space isn't precious, it's brain cycles when making
improvements, and once it's out of core and in contrib there's no longer
any obligation to check it.


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Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Greg Troxel <gdt@work.lexort.com> writes:

> maybe move the cruft to a contrib directory, so that if it's loved it
> can be resurrected easily, and if not it can sit there. 

Well, it's in git, so resurrecting anything is easy enough, even after
it's deleted...  (I think.)

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

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[David Engster]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen writes:
> But there's probably someone, somewhere, that uses lynx as the renderer,
> so touching any of that stuff is probably going to upset someone.
>
> What do all y'all think?

I'd suggest creating a new branch for the spree. Then let people test
the branch, merge, and get flamed anyway. ;-)

-David

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:47:20 +0200 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> wrote: 

LMI> Gnus has accrued an awful lot of cruft during the past two, er, three
LMI> decades.  There's stuff like nnslashdot, nnultimate and nnlistserv that
LMI> probably isn't very useful for anybody any more.

LMI> Should I just go ahead and do a deleting spree?

Yes.  Have no fear, see
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/953481/restore-a-deleted-file-in-a-git-repo

LMI> But that's the easy part.  While trying to re-familiarise myself with
LMI> how the mm/html rendering worked, I have to admit I stumbled around a
LMI> lot in the
LMI> mm-text-html-renderer-alist/mm-text-html-washer-alist/mm-text-html-renderer
LMI> variables, and the gazillion different functions in mm-view/mm-decode
LMI> that render HTML with more than a handful of external renderers, and
LMI> more than a handful of different versions of the renderers.

LMI> Just to take an example.

LMI> But there's probably someone, somewhere, that uses lynx as the renderer,
LMI> so touching any of that stuff is probably going to upset someone.

I'm OK with simplifying all of that.  It's really complicated.

Ted

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> LMI> Should I just go ahead and do a deleting spree?
>
> Yes.  Have no fear, see
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/953481/restore-a-deleted-file-in-a-git-repo

So we can start with backends.  I think the way to do this is to remove
them one at a time -- that is, delete the backend file, and then delete
all mentions of it from the rest of the source code and the
documentation.

Here's the complete list of backends:

nnagent.el
nnbabyl.el
nndb.el
nndiary.el
nndir.el
nndoc.el
nndraft.el
nneething.el
nnfolder.el
nngateway.el
nnimap.el
nnir.el
nnkiboze.el
nnlistserv.el
nnmaildir.el
nnmairix.el
nnmbox.el
nnmh.el
nnml.el
nnnil.el
nnrss.el
nnslashdot.el
nnsoup.el
nnspool.el
nntp.el
nnultimate.el
nnvirtual.el
nnwarchive.el
nnweb.el
nnwfm.el

Yikes.  Anyway, I think the candidates for deletion are:

nndb.el        mostly not updated since 1997.  Goner, I think
nnkiboze.el    I can't really imagine anybody uses this
nnlistserv.el  This, neither
nnslashdot.el  Does this even work?  nnrss/Gwene is an alternative
nnsoup.el      Way old code
nnultimate.el  I can't imagine this works still
nnwarchive.el  Very little updating since 1999
nnwfm.el       Ditto

So I'm going to delete these eight backends (and some of them have
gnus-*.el files corresponding to them, like gnus-soup.el), unless
anybody objects.  Speak up now etc.

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

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Leo]

On 2010-08-30 17:25 +0100, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> So I'm going to delete these eight backends (and some of them have
> gnus-*.el files corresponding to them, like gnus-soup.el), unless
> anybody objects. Speak up now etc.

message-mode has been sorta forced into the default mode for composing
emails. It will be nice to cut down its dependencies. I think it loads
about 30 packages.

Leo

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Leo <sdl.web@gmail.com> writes:

> message-mode has been sorta forced into the default mode for composing
> emails. It will be nice to cut down its dependencies. I think it loads
> about 30 packages.

But is there anything it doesn't need?  :-)

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

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Leo]

On 2010-08-30 18:16 +0100, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:
>> message-mode has been sorta forced into the default mode for composing
>> emails. It will be nice to cut down its dependencies. I think it loads
>> about 30 packages.
>
> But is there anything it doesn't need?  :-)

I suppose it should contain the essence for writing emails (setting up
headers + handling attachment etc). Some gnus-specific stuff should be
moved out. I like it to be lean so that I can encourage people to try
it. I know some refuse to do so because of their mysterious dislike of
Gnus.

Leo

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Leo <sdl.web@gmail.com> writes:

> I suppose it should contain the essence for writing emails (setting up
> headers + handling attachment etc). Some gnus-specific stuff should be
> moved out. I like it to be lean so that I can encourage people to try
> it. I know some refuse to do so because of their mysterious dislike of
> Gnus.

I've haven't tried using Message without Gnus in a decade, and I can
only imagine that lots of Gnus-dependent things have crept in.  But if
you look at the `require' list at the top of message.el, there isn't all
that much...  of course, those things might require more Gnus bits,
but... 

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

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Leo]

On 2010-08-30 18:34 +0100, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> I've haven't tried using Message without Gnus in a decade, and I can
> only imagine that lots of Gnus-dependent things have crept in.

Me neither. I have set mail-user-agent to gnus-user-agent.

The proposal isn't important for people using Gnus.

Leo

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Reiner Steib]

On Mon, Aug 30 2010, Leo wrote:

> message-mode has been sorta forced into the default mode for composing
> emails. It will be nice to cut down its dependencies. I think it loads
> about 30 packages.

IIRC, someone (Glenn?) has reduced the dependencies drastically in
Emacs 24.  (Sorry, I don't have current git/bzr repositories for
Gnus/Emacs available to check.)

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Alberto Luaces]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen writes:

> Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
>
>> LMI> Should I just go ahead and do a deleting spree?
>>
>> Yes.  Have no fear, see
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/953481/restore-a-deleted-file-in-a-git-repo
>

[...]


> nnsoup.el      Way old code

[...]

> So I'm going to delete these eight backends (and some of them have
> gnus-*.el files corresponding to them, like gnus-soup.el), unless
> anybody objects.  Speak up now etc.

I think that soup mode could still make sense with today's embedded
devices (cellular phones, etc) or laptops since a continuous connection
to the net is never warranted. Could be useful with IMAP accounts, for
example.

-- 
Alberto

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Alberto Luaces <aluaces@udc.es> writes:

> I think that soup mode could still make sense with today's embedded
> devices (cellular phones, etc) or laptops since a continuous connection
> to the net is never warranted. Could be useful with IMAP accounts, for
> example.

nnsoup relies on tar and gzip and stuff...  I think if anybody is using
Gnus on Android phones, they're just using the Agent instead for
offlining. 

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

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

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

> So I'm going to delete these eight backends (and some of them have
> gnus-*.el files corresponding to them, like gnus-soup.el), unless
> anybody objects.  Speak up now etc.

I've started deleting backends...

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

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

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

> nndb.el        mostly not updated since 1997.  Goner, I think
> nnkiboze.el    I can't really imagine anybody uses this
> nnlistserv.el  This, neither
> nnslashdot.el  Does this even work?  nnrss/Gwene is an alternative
> nnsoup.el      Way old code
> nnultimate.el  I can't imagine this works still
> nnwarchive.el  Very little updating since 1999
> nnwfm.el       Ditto
>
> So I'm going to delete these eight backends (and some of them have
> gnus-*.el files corresponding to them, like gnus-soup.el), unless
> anybody objects.  Speak up now etc.

Nobody did (much :-), so these are all now deleted.

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

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Let's see.  Are there any other files that can go?

gnus-audio.el         ; This was probably never useful
gnus-nocem.el         ; Is this in use anywhere still?

Oh, there wasn't a lot of candidates for full-scale deletion... 

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

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:03:35 +0200 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> wrote: 

LMI> gnus-nocem.el         ; Is this in use anywhere still?

See http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/64054/focus=64117
and http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/68303/focus=68309

No active use, I think.  GMane's xref solution is more elegant in any case.

Ted

Re: Doing some... maintenance

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> See http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/64054/focus=64117
> and http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/68303/focus=68309
>
> No active use, I think.  GMane's xref solution is more elegant in any case.

That's just one year ago, though...  Katsumi?  Are you still using
gnus-nocem?  :-)

I mean, if it even has a handful of users, then there's not much point
in deleting it yet.

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