Re: Moving from Thunderbird to Emacs for mail and calendar

[Richard Riley]

Jeff Clough <jeff@chaosphere.com> writes:

> I'm pretty sure you've decided this is a religious issue at this
> point, so it's unlikely I'm going to pursue the conversation beyond
> this message.  You like Gnus, I don't.  Fair enough.

Nothing in my reply suggested that. I merely asked you to be more
specific about what did not work. However it's clear that from this
reply you really have nothing to add other than being dismissive of Gnus
in general and insulting with regards to the manual.

>
> From: Richard Riley <rileyrgdev@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:20:59 +0200
>
>> Why not? If you mention specifics that did not work maybe I or others
>> might help?
>
> Help with what?  Getting software I'm no longer interested in to run?

Had you sought help back when maybe you would now be more qualified to
actually dismiss Gnus handling of email. Yet you freely admit to not
having successfully used it. I find this somewhat strange. If there is
any "religion" going on here it is most certainly not from me.

>
>> I got most of my config from a mixture of howtos and the manual.
>
> I read that as at least three independent sources of documentation.  I
> don't find that at all reasonable, but hey, I'm not the world.

Fortunately not. You have dragged this thread down quite rapidly for
some reason known only to yourself. It is clear you were frustrated by
your inability to get Gnus running. I was merely suggesting that help is
freely available. And to talk about the usage of Gnus when you freely
admit to not having used it or got it working is, well, ridiculous.

>
>>> It's not wrong to compare what I know about Gnus to what I know about
>>> Mew.
>> 
>> That is true Jeff. But you didn't do that. You said you never got Gnus
>> working. Which is a different thing. I think its hard to be objective
>> about a MUA if you didn't actually use it as one. Or am I mistaken in
>> your meaning?
>
> My answer to this was (and is) below.
>
>>>
>>> Where the Gnus documentation exists, it's awful.  This is in direct
>>> contrast of Mew, where I was able to look at one page of text, follow
>>> a handful of steps and have a working MUA in less than an hour.
>>>
>>> Gnus also brags about the fact that all messages are treated the same,
>> 
>> Brags?
>
> Yes.  From page one of the manual:
>
> "Gnus is a message-reading laboratory. It will let you look at just
> about anything as if it were a newsgroup. You can read mail with it,
> you can browse directories with it, you can ftp with it|you can even
> read news with it!"

Brags?

>
>> And also not true. Using splitting on the gnus client side or
>> subscribing to different maildirs via imap for example different
>> messages can go to different folders all with their own customised
>> handling/presentation/posting style.
>
> That you can customize it's behavior and make things do what you want
> them to do is not an endorsement of the default behavior.  The
> developers of Gnus, as expressed in their own documentation, say that
> a strength of Gnus is treating all of the messages the same.

But you maintain you never got it working. Yet you feel qualified to call
it "crap"?

>
>> It's certainly not "crap". But if you don't have the patience or the
>> desire to pursue it and you're happy with Mew, then enjoy - it's still
>> a great email client I am sure hosted by emacs.
>
> How many hours of frustration should a user be expected to endure in
> order to run a piece of software to solve the problem of reading
> email?  Mind you, I'm not talking about hours spent learning how to
> *use* the software, I'm talking about hours spent just getting it to
> work *at all*.

What were your problems? Be specific. Maybe it could lead to an
improvement in the manual?

>
>> In short my email set up talks to an impa server, drags all emails in,
>> splits them into different folders, I then use different smtp servers
>> for sending depending on the posting style employed by that particular
>> group. It all works very, very fast, efficiently and reliably with
>> excellent customisation facilities. No. It's not "crap".
>
> So Gnus isn't crap as a *client* because you can do everything you
> want by running multiple *servers*!?!  I'm sorry, but in my world

No. What on earth made you think that? I merely pointed out its a
feature I use.

> "become a sysadmin for a handful of servers" is in no way a reasonable
> solution to "i'd like to read my email now".

Possibly you didn't understand my setup explanation and this adds to
your frustration and readiness to dismiss Gnus. Why are you taking about
becoming a sysadmin for a handful of servers?!?

You seem pretty unwilling to actually explain your issues with Gnus
other than you think its "crap" because you were unable to get it
working. I find that rather strange and unhelpful when there are plenty
of others who would gladly help. Still. Whatever floats your boat. I got
it working and I was pretty new to emacs at the time. Gnus is a
wonderful MUA for those willing to follow the instructions. For those
who just want to read their email 3 seconds after deciding on an emacs
based MUA and don't have the desire to actively seek help, I
don't doubt Mews is better for you.

I mistook your original post as possibly looking for a fact based
comparison between features of Mews and Gnus. Nothing you said about the
handling of mail by Mews is in any way unique to it or missing from the
more powerful Gnus as far as I can see.

>
> Jeff
>
> ----------
> Author of the Genesys System
> A "free" universal role-playing game.
> http://www.chaosphere.com/genesys/ 
>