Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!mace.cc.purdue.edu!asd
From: asd@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Review of NN, a Usenet news reader
Keywords: rn, .newsrc, b&d, S & M
Message-ID: <2803@mace.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 27 Jul 89 22:14:28 GMT
References: <1836@papaya.bbn.com> <1150@sequent.cs.qmc.ac.uk> <1050@unocss.UUCP> <402@laas.laas.fr> <2794@mace.cc.purdue.edu> <404@laas.laas.fr>
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 93

In article <404@laas.laas.fr> ralph@nastassia.laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) writes:

>In article <2794@mace.cc.purdue.edu> asd@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth) writes:
>|  >Have you never heard of rn's '=' command, which the user may
>|  >customize.  Mine prints out subject, length, and author.
>|  
>|  Just make sure you have a pencil and paper handy so you can write down all the
>|  numbers of the subjects you want to read.  NN nicely eliminates that by making
>|  the computer your pencil and paper.  It also, IMHO, sorts everything nicely so
>|  all related subjects are next to each other, eliminating searching thru all
>|  the subjects for the same thing.

>Likewise for rn!  If you find an interesting subject, with ^N you get
>the next message with the same subject.  Don't sell it short; it
Yes, but you have to now about ^N.  NN allows any novice to easily see all
similar subjects right there without having to know about any fancier
features.

>*also* has powerful regexp patterns that you can enter (or better yet
>program into the system).
Well, I'm not sure how powerful NN's are.  But it does have em, if you need
em.  Or you can just hit '*' on the current subject you are on and get it to
match all like subjects.  Or of course, there is the auto-selection feature.
And along with the auto-kill, they are nicely configurable for a certain time
period (like a few days, months, or all the time) which I don't think rn can
do.

>|  In maybe 6.4 or so, whenever Kim gets to it, NN will support leaving certain
>|  articles unread (right Kim?), which will probably nead a different format,
>|  maybe even the *standard* .newsrc file format.  What's the big deal about
>|  having a different format anyways?  If you use NN why even need to bother with

>Kareth, please don't be so naive.  One needs a *standard*, even
Well, I'm not.

>possibly a *standard* .newsrc file.  When, for example, you're on a
>network with a plethora of newsreaders which are not uniformly
>distributed over all machines, but *all* can read your .newsrc file.

But only one .newsrc can only apply to one machine right?  The numbers in it
aren't transferable around machines are they?  (Neither are nn's ither) Why
would you need to read news on all the different machines?  I've got a dozen
plus accounts on different machines, and only read from one.  I only use one
newsreader (nn now) so I don't need to ever deal with rn or all the others.
Isn't that the way most people will work?  Use one newsreader only?  If I used
rn, why use readnews?  or vnews, gnews, etc.  Maybe there are some people who
do do that.  But I don't see a exactly why nn needs to use a .newsrc format
unless you are specifically going to be using both nn and rn/vnews/etc. which
would seem odd to me.

Don't get me wrong, I see a need for NN to be able to use .nesrc files
correctly.  It'd surely help in getting a wider acceptance of it.  However
looking at the NN rc file and the .newsrc file makes me think the .newsrc
version is messed up.  NN's rc file is designed on a very structured basis.
Everything goes in a certain place, column, etc.  A program can quickly flash
thru the file, and not have to read thru the line, checking out each column
for the : or the !.  I'd think there is some speed advantage to NN's way of
doing things.  But I too would like to see NN be able to support the .newsrc
way of things (even if it is slower).  But as I see it right now, I don't see
the reason why NN should HAVE to support a .newsrc format.  If you can explain
that to me, please do.  I'd like to understand the reasoning.  Email please
tho.

>Don't get me wrong.  I do not believe that `rn' is the sendall for all
>us news users.  I'm sure that NN has some desirable features.  And

That it does.

>what about TMNN(?)?  Does it exist?  I would like to see an advanced

Haven't heard of this.

>news reader running under X-windows or Sunview which would be
>programmable, and would have high-level and efficient KILL mechanisms.
>After all, one spends most one's time straining 90% of the news, just
>to get at the 5-10% that one's interested in.

I 100% agree with you here.  BTW, I've seen in the code of NN something about
if the name is nnemacs, it will run something else.  This feature (?) whatever
it is, hasn't been implemented yet.  And emacs version of NN?  Hmm,
interesting.

>Readnews and vnews might be considered as first generation.  Rn and NN
>can be considered as second generation news readers.  So what does the

I might go so far as to say NN is third generation with it's menu oriented
interface.

>third generation news reader offer us?

Or fourth generation?  Something like HAL maybe? :)

-kareth