Re: Reply to self behavior

[Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@users.sf.net>]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:18:55 -0600, Tommy Kelly wrote:
>> You know, I went away from Gnus around 4-5 years ago because my .gnus
>> reached >10k. I was fairly proficient back then but figured there *had*
>> to be a mail client with those 10k as defaults. Also, I wanted something
>> that had GUI written all over it.
>
> That's a lot of .gnus. It sounds like you were a bit of a ninja. Why
> give that up simply for a GUI?

Not just for the GUI of course, I tried all sorts of clients.
I'm particularly fond of mutt and slrn.

It's just that there seems no end to customizing Gnus. At some point I
was wondering whether, just maybe, there was a better way to read mail
(as in 'mail as news', emacs interface, groups, hooks, etc), and whether
this way would require less customization overall.

If you fire up mutt, it's email-1-2-3! And the defaults are quite
good. Learning Gnus requires quite some effort. Customizing Gnus even
more. After investing so much time you become entrenched. How many Gnus
users actually gave wanderlust a try, for example? (and vice-versa?)

I had the impression that Gnus was a sealed world in need of some fresh
air. After taking a look around, I'd say there is room for improvement
in some areas (_real_ format=flowed support anyone? it's supported since
199? in outlook), but overall the flexibility you have pays off.

But if you are an average user with average needs, finding an existing
client which works almost the way you want is waaay faster (and there is
a lot to choose from).

> My theory as to why I should try it now when I gave up in the past is
> that now I'm more determined to push through this initial learning phase
> to get (I hope) to a level of competency where I can at least do
> *slightly* better than the other clients I've used, before developing
> enough ability to be able to do a *lot* better.

Honestly, it's quite easy to do better than thunderbird, gmail (and most
GTK linux client anyway). And that's unfortunate, because a GUI *should*
give you more in the same space.

A serious contender, in my opinion, would be mutt and maybe some other
console-based clients.