Re: Improving Gnus speed

[Didier Verna <didier@xemacs.org>]

Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> wrote:

> And that means what? Its just indicative of the complexity of the
> product and the rather famous Gnus Manual in particular.

  No, it is indicative of the fact that its needs more energy to
implement mail reading in Gnus than only news reading (and also that it
is more complex to do it). And since this work has been done, as the
documentation proves), it is indicative of the fact that reading mail in
Gnus is in fact at least as important as reading news (since people are
willing to spend so much time and energy on it).

> Its not for nothing #emacs and other resources are constantly full of
> new adopters pleading for help in getting their email working with
> Gnus.

  Err, exactly my point, thanks for supporting me. New adopters indeed
want to get help reading mail with Gnus. This means that new adopters
want to read mail with Gnus. So Gnus is a mail reader (at least as much
as it is a news reader).


> Gnus can most certainly be thought of as primarily a newsreader in my
> mind 

  Not in mine. It is primarily a mail reader for me (but of course
you're entitled to think otherwise). The other poster was also right in
saying that Gnus is a way of life. More precisely, the way of life in
question is to handle mail in a news-like way (auto-expiry etc).

Just for the anecdote, I almost got to writing a Gnus book for O'Reilly
France some years ago. The editor contacted me about it and while we
were discussing the contents and organization, he said that in order to
reach the broadest possible audience, the quickstart had to show how to
use nnimap as the primary select method...

In fact, I would really like if we had serious statistics about Gnus
usage, and I wouldn't be surprised if people read more mails than news
with it.


> and most certainly your claim that its NOT a news reader must be a
> joke. It is isn't it??

  No, it's not a joke. It's a news/mail reader and you've got to
acknowledge the fact that reading mail with it is at least as important
as reading news with it. Guys, remember the original question ? The OP
found it paradoxical that Gnus development discussion happens on a
mailing list. I maintain that if you get that sort of feeling, it's
because your view of what Gnus really is wrong.

-- 
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