Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!algor2!jeffrey
From: jeffrey@algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: What newsreaders are there out there?
Keywords: newsreaders nn rn
Message-ID: <466@algor2.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jul 89 19:16:29 GMT
References: <247@ascom.UUCP> <598@lakart.UUCP>
Reply-To: jeffrey@algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler)
Organization: Algorists, Inc., Reston VA
Lines: 30

In article <598@lakart.UUCP> dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) writes:
>Just my $0.02 worth - BTW I'm going to be real interested in how this
>nn thing behaves: I have it all saved away, but haven't bothered to
>unpack and make it yet.

I have unpacked, ported, compiled, installed and run nn.  It is very fancy,
very full featured, a very impressive effort.  But one (for me) problem.

The concept of a single article being unread is foreign to nn.  After reading
a group apparently, you must decide to keep everything, or junk it all.
Extensive save facilities and the ability to manipulate your nn selections
and return to them mitigate this dilemma, but I find it scary.

My usual newsreading procedure (I use rn these days) is to go into groups,
read some stuff, junk other stuff, and leave a bunch undecided about.  I then
proceed on to the next group.  I may return to that group again
and hack away further.  Groups with large backlogs have the greatest
claim on my attentions.  With nn you (apparently) just cannot do this.

With nn you must go into a group, select stuff to read, read it, and then choose,
either forget about the stuff in the group or keep it all.  (God these Europeans
are decisive!  I wish I could be like that.)

As I posted to comp.sources.d, I found nn to be like the play Hamlet, clearly
brilliant, but very perplexing.
-- 

Jeffrey Kegler, President, Algorists,
jeffrey@algor2.UU.NET or uunet!algor2!jeffrey
1762 Wainwright DR, Reston VA 22090