[gnu.emacs.gnews] GNUS vs Gnews

felix@AI.SRI.COM (Francois Felix INGRAND) (10/01/89)

In article <MARVIT.89Sep27195723@hplpm.hpl.hp.com>, marvit@hplpm (Peter Marvit) writes:
>Could someone post a short functional diff between GNUS and Gnews.  I'm a
>dedicated GNUS user, myself...

I started with gnus a long time ago, but now I am a dedicated Gnews
user... (sound like a commercial) and I must say that it is the
"fastest" tool you can find to read news (I do not mean fast in term
of code, but in term of how long time you spend to read news
everyday). The index mode is really powerful, especially if you play
with the hook stuff. In index mode, most of the heavy newsgroups such
as comp.sys.mac or or comp.sys.sun are read in a couple of minutes,
and it is fully customizable...

If you want some example of customization, check the Info doc or send
me a mail.

Give it a try... You will be impressed.

PS: I must confess that I have not tried gnus lately... so maybe the
last gnus version are providing some new interesting stuff.

felix@AI.SRI.COM (Francois Felix INGRAND) (10/03/89)

In article <MSB.89Oct2095104@ho5cad.att.com>, msb@ho5cad (Mike Balenger) writes:
>In article <SHADOW.89Oct1221126@pawl.rpi.edu> shadow@pawl.rpi.edu (Deven T. Corzine) writes:
>> On 30 Sep 89 22:56:28 GMT,
>> felix@AI.SRI.COM (Francois Felix INGRAND) said:
>
>> felix> I started with gnus a long time ago, but now I am a dedicated
>> felix> Gnews user... (sound like a commercial) and I must say that it
>> felix> is the "fastest" tool you can find to read news (I do not mean
>> felix> fast in term of code, but in term of how long time you spend to
>> felix> read news everyday).
>
>> This is interesting; most testimony I've seen tends towards the other
>> direction.
>
>I'll second that.  I used  Gnews for about a   year.  I've been  using
>gnus   for  about  5 months.    Although gnus is    SLOWER  fetching a
>particular  article,  I can read   news lots FASTER  with   gnus.  The
>summary allows me to prune  unwanted articles without previewing them.
>It's easier to   learn,    more   powerful,  more  intuitive,     more
>customizable, uses STANDARD .newsrc format, runs right out of the box.
>In short, it's more fit for use -- it's just lot's better.

I must say that I disagree with some of your comments above, but most
of them are subjective anyway... so I am not going to argue, it is
obviously a question of taste.

In general, I will say that everybody has his own style to read news.
I like to be able to:
- setup my own format line in index mode depending of the newsgroup,
- be in index-mode automatically for some newsgroups not others,
- index only if there are more than *variable* article,
- use abbrev for newsgroup name,
- have some index sorted on subject or date or not at all,
- play with the most complex signature mechanism designed by a human brain...
- switch in digest mode automatically (by newsgroup or article),
- etc

The last time I tried gnus, it was not providing these features. That's all.

>Oh, gnus is  constantly being enhanced.  Last I heard,  Gnews had not
>been worked on in a year.  No big deal if you like one or the other as
>it curently stands, though.

The last I have heard about Gnews is that Matthew Wiener (sp?) is
working on a new version...

Anyway, it is no big deal indeed... If you like it, keep it. If you
don't, try another one.
-- 
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Francois Felix INGRAND                          SRI International, AIC
felix@AI.SRI.COM                                333, Ravenswood Avenue
felix%AI.SRI.COM@UUNET.UU.NET                   MENLO PARK, CA 94025, USA
"Pourquoi tant de haine..." (Edika)      "Read my Lisp... No new syntax" (nil)