Re: Emacs for mail: VM - WL - GNUS

[Elena]

On Nov 24, 9:46 pm, Jason Earl <je...@notengoamigos.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 24 2010, Elena wrote:
> > On Nov 23, 4:18 pm, Jason Earl <je...@notengoamigos.org> wrote:
> >> Here is a basic setup that will connect gnus to an IMAP server on port
> >> 993 via ssl.  In short, if all you need is the sort of basic setup that
> >> you get from other mail clients this will suit you just fine.
>
> >> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> >> (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
> >>       '((nnimap "mail"
> >>                 (nnimap-address "your.mail.server")
> >>                 (nnimap-server-port 993)
> >>                 (nnimap-stream ssl)
> >>                 (nnimap-authenticator login))))
> >> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> > Thank you very much, Jason.  However, my server is a POP one,
> > otherwise I guess Gnus would not have been dumb enough to start
> > downloading my mails and deleting them assuming I knew some bizantine
> > settings to avoid that beforehand.  Thunderbird may be big and slow,
> > but at least it does not make such assumptions.
>
> > For a text-based mail-client, I'm looking into Alpine now.
>
> It has been a long time since I have used a pop3 client, but when I used
> to support such beasts downloading the messages (and deleting them from
> the server) is precisely what they were *supposed* to do.  I would not
> be surprised if most modern email clients still downloaded the messages
> and deleted them from the server when using pop3.

Fair rebuttal.  Then it is POP3 which sucks, not Gnus.

> There are quite a few text-based email clients--heck, there are probably
> a half dozen *good* email clients based on Emacs--but I don't think that
> it is useful (or fair, for that matter) to advocate discounting Gnus
> because it did what is customary in the case of a pop3 server.

My complaint was not about that single issue.  I was debating whether
the general (*nix) attitude according to which a steep learning-curve
is acceptable for "powerful" tools.  I say: it depends.  Here, we are
not talking about an editor, where as long as you don't save anything,
your files are safe.  We are talking about your own mailbox, which
could get messed up by you just trying out a software.  I remember
when I gave Gnus a try: it hanged Emacs while downloading and deleting
my mails on the server.  I don't remember whether a `keyboard-quit'
was enough to limit the damage or whether I had to shoot the Emacs
process completely (maybe the former).  However, I was left with the
idea to never try a "powerful" text-based mail-client again, and until
this day I've sticked with Thunderbird.

Guys, we all agree that it is free software and nobody is forcing you
to use it, but I think that criticism is fair anyway.