Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

>>>>> Leo wrote:

> ,----[ (info "(gnus)Headers") ]
>| And Gnus uses a format internally that it calls "header", which is
>| what I'm talking about here.  This is a 9-element vector, basically,
>| with each header (ouch) having one slot.
> `----

> It looks like Gnus has its own internal format and I have heard that it
> is superior to NOV. So should users set gnus-nov-is-evil to t?

If you have a nnml group, you can see its .overview file, that is
just NOV.  It's a common format that most news servers use when
communicating with clients.  It improves the performance.  So,
disabling it is not a good idea unless it malfunctions in the
server.  See also `nnml-nov-is-evil' and `nntp-nov-is-evil'.

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Leo]

On 2007-09-13 11:15 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>>>>>> Leo wrote:
>
>> ,----[ (info "(gnus)Headers") ]
>>| And Gnus uses a format internally that it calls "header", which is
>>| what I'm talking about here.  This is a 9-element vector, basically,
>>| with each header (ouch) having one slot.
>> `----
>
>> It looks like Gnus has its own internal format and I have heard that it
>> is superior to NOV. So should users set gnus-nov-is-evil to t?
>
> If you have a nnml group, you can see its .overview file, that is
> just NOV.  It's a common format that most news servers use when
> communicating with clients.  It improves the performance.  So,
> disabling it is not a good idea unless it malfunctions in the
> server.  See also `nnml-nov-is-evil' and `nntp-nov-is-evil'.

Thanks for the explanation.

-- 
.:  Leo  :.  [ sdl.web AT gmail.com ]  .:  [ GPG Key: 9283AA3F ]  :.

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Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Leo]

On 2007-09-13 11:15 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>> It looks like Gnus has its own internal format and I have heard that
>> it is superior to NOV. So should users set gnus-nov-is-evil to t?
>
> If you have a nnml group, you can see its .overview file, that is just
> NOV.  It's a common format that most news servers use when
> communicating with clients.  It improves the performance.  So,
> disabling it is not a good idea unless it malfunctions in the server.
> See also `nnml-nov-is-evil' and `nntp-nov-is-evil'.

Do you think this should go to the manual?

Cheers,
-- 
.:  Leo  :.  [ sdl.web AT gmail.com ]  .:  [ GPG Key: 9283AA3F ]  :.

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Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

>>>>> Leo wrote:
> On 2007-09-13 11:15 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:

>> If you have a nnml group, you can see its .overview file, that is just
>> NOV.  It's a common format that most news servers use when
>> communicating with clients.  It improves the performance.  So,
>> disabling it is not a good idea unless it malfunctions in the server.
>> See also `nnml-nov-is-evil' and `nntp-nov-is-evil'.

Oops.  I overlooked `nndiary-nov-is-evil', `nndir-nov-is-evil',
`nnfolder-nov-is-evil', `nnimap-nov-is-evil', `nnspool-nov-is-evil',
and `nnwarchive-nov-is-evil'.

> Do you think this should go to the manual?'

Isn't it enough?

(info "(gnus)Terminology")
,----
|"NOV"
|  When Gnus enters a group, it asks the back end for the headers of
|  all unread articles in the group.  Most servers support the News
|  OverView format, which is more compact and much faster to read and
|  parse than the normal HEAD format.
`----

I take time ten times as long as Japanese to write English. ;-)

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Leo]

On 2007-09-13 13:09 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>>>>>> Leo wrote:
>> On 2007-09-13 11:15 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>
>>> If you have a nnml group, you can see its .overview file, that is just
>>> NOV.  It's a common format that most news servers use when
>>> communicating with clients.  It improves the performance.  So,
>>> disabling it is not a good idea unless it malfunctions in the server.
>>> See also `nnml-nov-is-evil' and `nntp-nov-is-evil'.
>
> Oops.  I overlooked `nndiary-nov-is-evil', `nndir-nov-is-evil',
> `nnfolder-nov-is-evil', `nnimap-nov-is-evil', `nnspool-nov-is-evil',
> and `nnwarchive-nov-is-evil'.
>
>> Do you think this should go to the manual?'
>
> Isn't it enough?
>
> (info "(gnus)Terminology")
> ,----
> |"NOV"
> |  When Gnus enters a group, it asks the back end for the headers of
> |  all unread articles in the group.  Most servers support the News
> |  OverView format, which is more compact and much faster to read and
> |  parse than the normal HEAD format.
> `----
>
> I take time ten times as long as Japanese to write English. ;-)

It is odd that it is not explained in the main text of the
manual. Terminology is the last thing a user want to see.

-- 
.:  Leo  :.  [ sdl.web AT gmail.com ]  .:  [ GPG Key: 9283AA3F ]  :.

=>             "(require 'cl) considered harmful" considered harmful
=>           http://dto.freeshell.org/blog/blog-2007-09-07-2323.html

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

>>>>> Leo wrote:
> On 2007-09-13 13:09 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:

>>> Do you think this should go to the manual?'

>> Isn't it enough?

>> (info "(gnus)Terminology")
>> ,----
>>|"NOV"
>>|  When Gnus enters a group, it asks the back end for the headers of
>>|  all unread articles in the group.  Most servers support the News
>>|  OverView format, which is more compact and much faster to read and
>>|  parse than the normal HEAD format.
>> `----

>> I take time ten times as long as Japanese to write English. ;-)

> It is odd that it is not explained in the main text of the
> manual. Terminology is the last thing a user want to see.

Indeed.  I was skeptical to make the Gnus manual describe in detail
such a common word.  Since Gnus started as a simple news reader[1],
NOV was a self-explaining word, I believe.  But I agree to add a
brief explanation in some place.  Volunteer?  (If no one stands,
I'll do it someday, even though I'm not a good English writer. ;-)

[1] It was GNUS in those days.  How simple the one I used first
    was: http://www.jpl.org/ftp/pub/elisp/attic/gnus-3.12.tar.Z

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Leo]

On 2007-09-14 00:27 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>>> I take time ten times as long as Japanese to write English. ;-)
>
>> It is odd that it is not explained in the main text of the
>> manual. Terminology is the last thing a user want to see.
>
> Indeed.  I was skeptical to make the Gnus manual describe in detail
> such a common word.  Since Gnus started as a simple news reader[1],
> NOV was a self-explaining word, I believe.  But I agree to add a
> brief explanation in some place.  Volunteer?  (If no one stands,
> I'll do it someday, even though I'm not a good English writer. ;-)

I am non-native speaker myself.

> [1] It was GNUS in those days.  How simple the one I used first was:
> http://www.jpl.org/ftp/pub/elisp/attic/gnus-3.12.tar.Z

That is impressive and it looks like it still runs in modern GNU Emacs.

-- 
.:  Leo  :.  [ sdl.web AT gmail.com ]  .:  [ GPG Key: 9283AA3F ]  :.

=>             "(require 'cl) considered harmful" considered harmful
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Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>> [1] It was GNUS in those days.  How simple the one I used first was:
>> http://www.jpl.org/ftp/pub/elisp/attic/gnus-3.12.tar.Z

Leo <sdl.web@gmail.com> writes:
> That is impressive and it looks like it still runs in modern GNU Emacs.

The first version I used was 2.10, and was where I first did mail+news
integration (nnspool only, using external shell script assistance).

It's amazing, or perhaps alarming, how far Gnus has gone over the years.

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

>>>>> Leo wrote:
> On 2007-09-14 00:27 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:

>> I'll do it someday, even though I'm not a good English writer. ;-)

> I am non-native speaker myself.

OK.  I've added this:

(info "(gnus)Slow/Expensive Connection")
,----
|`gnus-nov-is-evil'
|     This one has to be _always_ `nil' (which is the default).  If you
|     need not to use NOV (see below) with the `nntp' back end for
|     example (*note Crosspost Handling::), set `nntp-nov-is-evil' to a
|     non-`nil' value instead of setting this.  But you normally have no
|     need to set `nntp-nov-is-evil' since Gnus by itself will detect
|     whether the NNTP server supports NOV.  Anyway, grabbing article
|     headers from the NNTP server will not be very fast if you tell
|     Gnus not to use NOV.
|
|     As the variables for the other back ends, there are
|     `nndiary-nov-is-evil', `nndir-nov-is-evil',
|     `nnfolder-nov-is-evil', `nnimap-nov-is-evil', `nnml-nov-is-evil',
|     `nnspool-nov-is-evil', and `nnwarchive-nov-is-evil'.  Note that a
|     non-`nil' value for `gnus-nov-is-evil' overrides all those
|     variables.
|
|What's NOV?
|
|   NOV stands for News OverView, which provide data containing the
|condensed header information of articles.  They are what the server
|makes; in the `nntp' back end Gnus uses the ones that the NNTP server
|makes, but Gnus makes them by itself in the server like `nnml' which
|Gnus performs.  The NOV data consist of one or more text lines (*note
|Motion by Text Lines: (elisp)Text Lines.) where each line has the header
|information of one article.  The header information is a tab-separated
|series of the header's contents including an article number, a subject,
|an author, a date, a message-id, references, etc.
|
|   Those data enable Gnus to generate summary lines fast.  However, if
|the server does not support NOV or you disable it purposely or for some
|reason, Gnus will try to generate the header information by parsing
|article's header one by one.  It will take time.  Therefore, it is not
|usually a good idea to set `*-nov-is-evil' to a non-`nil' value unless
|there is such a reason that the server makes wrong NOV data.
`----

See you next week.

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Lowell Gilbert]

I *am* a native English speaker, and I thought that text was quite
good.  Here, however, is a slightly edited version that may be
slightly more clear.

================================================================

What's NOV?

    NOV stands for News OverView, which is a type of news server header
which provide datas containing the condensed header information of
articles.  The are produced by the server itself; in the `nntp' back
end Gnus uses the ones that the NNTP server makes, but Gnus makes them
by itself for some backends (in particular, `nnml').  The NOV data
consist of one or more text lines (*note Motion by Text Lines:
(elisp)Text Lines.) where each line has the header information of one
article.  The header information is a tab-separated series of the
header's contents including an article number, a subject, an author, a
date, a message-id, references, etc.

   Those data enable Gnus to generate summary lines quickly.  However, if
the server does not support NOV or you disable it purposely or for some
reason, Gnus will try to generate the header information by parsing each
article's headers one by one.  It will take time.  Therefore, it is not
usually a good idea to set `*-nov-is-evil' to a non-`nil' value unless
you know that the server makes wrong NOV data.

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Leo]

On 2007-09-14 12:02 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>>>>>> Leo wrote:
>> On 2007-09-14 00:27 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>
>>> I'll do it someday, even though I'm not a good English writer. ;-)
>
>> I am non-native speaker myself.
>
> OK.  I've added this:
[...]

It looks great!

> See you next week.

Have a lovely weekend.

Best,
-- 
.:  Leo  :.  [ sdl.web AT gmail.com ]  .:  [ GPG Key: 9283AA3F ]  :.

=>             "(require 'cl) considered harmful" considered harmful
=>           http://dto.freeshell.org/blog/blog-2007-09-07-2323.html

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:14:24 -0400, Karl wrote:

> It's amazing, or perhaps alarming, how far Gnus has gone over the years.

I find it strangely comforting.

Thanks all contributors!


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "I pragmatically turn my whims into principles!"             Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Allan Gottlieb]

I also am a native English speaker, and agree that text was quite
good.  Here, however, is a slightly edited version of the first part
that may be slightly more clear.

`gnus-nov-is-evil'
     This one must _always_ be `nil' (which is the default).  If, for
     example, you wish to not use NOV (see below) with the `nntp' back
     end (*note Crosspost Handling::), set `nntp-nov-is-evil' to a
     non-`nil' value instead of setting this.  But you normally do not
     need to set `nntp-nov-is-evil' since Gnus by itself will detect
     whether the NNTP server supports NOV.  Anyway, grabbing article
     headers from the NNTP server will not be very fast if you tell
     Gnus not to use NOV.

Thanks for gnus,
allan

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

>>>>> Lowell Gilbert wrote:

> I *am* a native English speaker, and I thought that text was quite
> good.  Here, however, is a slightly edited version that may be
> slightly more clear.

> ================================================================

> What's NOV?

>>>>> Allan Gottlieb wrote:

> I also am a native English speaker, and agree that text was quite
> good.  Here, however, is a slightly edited version of the first part
> that may be slightly more clear.

> `gnus-nov-is-evil'

Thank you very much for improving them.  I've merged Lowell's and
Allan's changes into the Gnus CVS repository (with the `tiny change'
flags in the ChangeLog entries).

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Hallvard B Furuseth]

Allan Gottlieb writes:
> Here, however, is a slightly edited version of the first part
> that may be slightly more clear.
>
> `gnus-nov-is-evil'
>      This one must _always_ be `nil' (which is the default).

I assume that should be "This variable is obsolete, it should
always be nil (which is the default)."  Otherwise, what's the
point of a variable which should never be changed?

Might also be an idea to insert code which gives a warning if it
is non-nil.  The warning could display the doc string you gave:

>     If, for
>     example, you wish to not use NOV (see below) with the `nntp' back
>     end (*note Crosspost Handling::), set `nntp-nov-is-evil' to a
>     non-`nil' value instead of setting this.  But you normally do not
>     need to set `nntp-nov-is-evil' since Gnus by itself will detect
>     whether the NNTP server supports NOV.  Anyway, grabbing article
>     headers from the NNTP server will not be very fast if you tell
>     Gnus not to use NOV.

-- 
Hallvard

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

>>>>> Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
> Allan Gottlieb writes:
>> Here, however, is a slightly edited version of the first part
>> that may be slightly more clear.
>>
>> `gnus-nov-is-evil'
>>      This one must _always_ be `nil' (which is the default).

> I assume that should be "This variable is obsolete, it should
> always be nil (which is the default)."  Otherwise, what's the
> point of a variable which should never be changed?

Thanks for pointing it out.  However, I overlooked that nnkiboze.el,
nnslashdot.el, nnultimate.el, and nnwfm.el don't have their own
nn*-nov-is-evil.  So, maybe we should introduce them and mention
in the `Back End Interface' Info section that every back end should
provide it.  Otherwise, what we should do may be to maintain those
back ends so as to always work well with NOV.  I vote to the later.

Regards,

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Reiner Steib]

On Thu, Sep 13 2007, Leo wrote:

> On 2007-09-13 13:09 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>>>>>>> Leo wrote:
>>> Do you think this should go to the manual?'
>>
>> Isn't it enough?
>>
>> (info "(gnus)Terminology")
>> ,----
>> |"NOV"
>> |  When Gnus enters a group, it asks the back end for the headers of
>> |  all unread articles in the group.  Most servers support the News
>> |  OverView format, which is more compact and much faster to read and
>> |  parse than the normal HEAD format.
>> `----
[...]
> It is odd that it is not explained in the main text of the
> manual. Terminology is the last thing a user want to see.

Why?  If you are not familiar with a term, terminology is exactly the
right place to look at instead of some random node in the "main text".
There are dozens of nodes where the term NOV is mentioned.  Adding
such explanations in each node would be terrible.

I'd prefer to have (most of) the new text in (info
"(gnus)Terminology") and add references in (info "(gnus)Slow/Expensive
Connection").

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

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Katsumi Yamaoka]

>>>>> Reiner Steib wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 13 2007, Leo wrote:
>> On 2007-09-13 13:09 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>>>>>>>> Leo wrote:
>>>> Do you think this should go to the manual?'
>>>
>>> Isn't it enough?
>>>
>>> (info "(gnus)Terminology")
> [...]
>> It is odd that it is not explained in the main text of the
>> manual. Terminology is the last thing a user want to see.

> Why?  If you are not familiar with a term, terminology is exactly the
> right place to look at instead of some random node in the "main text".
> There are dozens of nodes where the term NOV is mentioned.  Adding
> such explanations in each node would be terrible.

> I'd prefer to have (most of) the new text in (info
> "(gnus)Terminology") and add references in (info "(gnus)Slow/Expensive
> Connection").

I agreed, and did so.

Re: What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Leo]

On 2007-09-27 00:31 +0100, Katsumi Yamaoka wrote:
>> Why?  If you are not familiar with a term, terminology is exactly the
>> right place to look at instead of some random node in the "main text".
>> There are dozens of nodes where the term NOV is mentioned.  Adding
>> such explanations in each node would be terrible.
>
>> I'd prefer to have (most of) the new text in (info
>> "(gnus)Terminology") and add references in (info "(gnus)Slow/Expensive
>> Connection").
>
> I agreed, and did so.

I don't mind either way.

-- 
.:  Leo  :.  [ sdl.web AT gmail.com ]  .:  [ GPG Key: 9283AA3F ]  :.

       Use the most powerful email client -- http://gnus.org/

What's NOV? Should gnus-nov-is-evil be set to t?

[Leo]

Hi there,

From the manual:

,----[ (info "(gnus)Headers") ]
| And Gnus uses a format internally that it calls "header", which is
| what I'm talking about here.  This is a 9-element vector, basically,
| with each header (ouch) having one slot.
`----

It looks like Gnus has its own internal format and I have heard that it
is superior to NOV. So should users set gnus-nov-is-evil to t?

Thanks,
-- 
.:  Leo  :.  [ sdl.web AT gmail.com ]  .:  [ GPG Key: 9283AA3F ]  :.

=>             "(require 'cl) considered harmful" considered harmful
=>           http://dto.freeshell.org/blog/blog-2007-09-07-2323.html