Re: Don't waste time on offline newsreaders...

[Max Watson <redline pdq net delete this>]

At 05:13 PM 2/10/98 +0100, Ulric Eriksson wrote:

> <endless discussion about news reading snipped>

>
>Is it necessary to have this discussion here?

No it is not.

>
>I personally run INN at home, through a dial-up connection. I get fed only
>the groups I want. I read news a *lot*, and do not have any problems with
>the transfer time. It mostly takes place in the background as I am doing
>other things.
>
>The advantage of this is that I can use any newsreader I want (trn in my
>case) and still read news off-line. Members of my family can also use any
>newsreader they want, and use the same server despite running on another
>computer (under Windows 95). This is all in spirit with The Unix Way. 
>What, if anything, am I missing?
>

An offline newsreader just downloads the headers. Why download an entire
newsgroup when 80% of it is spam? I read a lot of news, and I like to have
it filtered BEFORE it reaches my computer. What is so difficult to
understand? There is a large (very large) cry for a friendly news reader a
la free agent for *nix. If you do not like it, and prefer the "UNIX
Way"(tm) then DO NOT USE IT. Writing any software that unix does not have
is NEVER a waste of time. To the original proposer of the agent-clone... go
for it! Do not let these GNOMErs discourage you. Like I have said before,
GNOME is the user-friendly desktop written by people who hate GUIs. If
everyone is sooo happy with console-based tools and the "UNIX Way"(tm),
then why bother writing a desktop at all? Just stick with emacs. Sheesh,
you people are PUSHING users towards KDE. They understand what a GUI
desktop is about.


M.Watson redline at pdq dot net