From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/41106 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai =?iso-8859-1?q?Gro=DFjohann?=) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: Make Gnus emit more errors for unknown servers? Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2001 22:50:35 +0100 Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035176556 4400 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 05:02:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 05:02:36 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: (qmail 1289 invoked from network); 29 Dec 2001 21:59:19 -0000 Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu (mail@129.7.128.13) by mastaler.com with SMTP; 29 Dec 2001 21:59:19 -0000 Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu ([129.7.128.10] ident=lists) by malifon.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 16KROd-00051F-00; Sat, 29 Dec 2001 15:52:03 -0600 Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Sat, 29 Dec 2001 15:51:55 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (sclp3.sclp.com [209.196.61.66]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA28577 for ; Sat, 29 Dec 2001 15:51:41 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: (qmail 1173 invoked by alias); 29 Dec 2001 21:51:13 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 1168 invoked from network); 29 Dec 2001 21:51:12 -0000 Original-Received: from waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de (129.217.4.42) by gnus.org with SMTP; 29 Dec 2001 21:51:12 -0000 Original-Received: from lothlorien.cs.uni-dortmund.de (lothlorien [129.217.19.67]) by waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de with ESMTP id fBTLojb28714 for ; Sat, 29 Dec 2001 22:50:45 +0100 (MET) Original-Received: from lucy.cs.uni-dortmund.de (lucy [129.217.19.80]) by lothlorien.cs.uni-dortmund.de id WAA25300; Sat, 29 Dec 2001 22:50:40 +0100 (MET) Original-Received: by lucy.cs.uni-dortmund.de (Postfix, from userid 6104) id C03993B03C; Sat, 29 Dec 2001 22:50:35 +0100 (CET) Original-To: ding@gnus.org In-Reply-To: (Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen's message of "Sat, 29 Dec 2001 11:55:14 +0100") Original-Lines: 47 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090004 (Oort Gnus v0.04) Emacs/21.1.50 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:41106 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:41106 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen writes: > Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Gro=DFjohann) writes: > >>> The server should still be in gnus-server-alist, I think? If it >>> isn't, it should be put there. Probably. >> >> I'm trying to suggest the opposite: when Gnus finds that a server is >> missing, it should issue an error message. > > But wouldn't it be better if the server never went missing? No. If people make a mistake in changing their server configs, then Gnus adding the old server back again doesn't really help so much. For example, in the old days, the select method entry in .newsrc.eld was (nnml "") for each nnml group. Now changing gnus-secondary-select-methods to add some parameter for the server spec won't do useful things. Now Gnus puts the string "nnml:" there rather than (nnml ""), so that it works to change the server parameters in gnus-secondary-select-methods. This is one step in preventing strange servers from appearing. Do you see the point I'm trying to make? The user tries to change something about a server, but something happens so that Gnus does not use the new server definition for some groups. Then my opinion is that Gnus should warn the user that something is wrong. But the current behavior for Gnus is that Gnus silently adds the `missing' server. >> There have been discussions in the past of people who see lots of >> strange servers when they do `^'. And even more strange problems >> resulted from this. > > Well, it is valid in Gnus to just put arbitrary select methods as the > servers of arbitrary groups. This will result in strange servers in > the server buffer. Is that a problem? I want Gnus to allow the user to create strange servers on purpose, but I also want Gnus to help the user from accidentally creating strange servers. kai --=20 Simplification good! Oversimplification bad! (Larry Wall)