Re: Help me decide which one to use for mail

Re: Help me decide which one to use for mail

[Kai Großjohann]

"Peter Wu" <peterwu@hotmail.com> writes:

> I want to pick up a mail hander program under FSF Emacs. Can anyone give
> me some advices on how about VM and Gnus in the terms of mail management?

First of all, both are good programs.  Secondly, I think the way to
distinguish between them is not by way of separate features.  Rather,
one should look at the fundamental philosophy behind them.

Gnus thinks that mail and news are more or less the same, so it has
features to make mail look more news-like and it also has some
features to make news look more mail-like.  (One feature to make mail
look news-like is that by default it doesn't show messages that are
marked as read.  One feature that to make news look mail-like is that
you can mark news articles in a special way and then they will stick
around on your local hard disk, even if expired on the news server.)

VM believes that mail and news are fundamentally different things.
Its user interface is more like a traditional mail reader.  For
example, by default it shows all messages and doesn't hide the ones
you've already read.

Any single behavior can be customized in both programs, but I think
you will be happier by choosing the program that matches your
philosophy.

Also note that there is RMAIL.  It can't be that bad -- RMS uses it ;-)
But VM does have more features, I think.
-- 
Ambibibentists unite!