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Re: Using KNode 0.7.2, Wondering What Else is Out There

Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> The command line scares me due to usability matters. I find it hard
> to be- lieve that effective interaction can be achieved without
> pointing devices and 'modifiability'.

This is an extraordinarily odd belief on your part.  Do you believe
that no such thing as "effective interaction" existed before mice existed?

I think you do not grasp that the question of "modifiability" has no
relation to whether an interface is based on a terminal (real or window).

> To me, CLI-based readers remain off bounds. The only merit I can
> think of is access via SSH/Telnet with a slow connection or without
> X-server (notably Windows).

I'm a very long time (18 years) heavy user of and contributor to Gnus.
Gnus came to life back when Emacs was just barely aware of the
existence of the underlying X environment, and Emacs was, and still
is, usable either as a native X (and, now, Windows) application or as
a "no windows" program in a terminal.

Gnus is quite possibly the last word in modifiability.  It's written
in Emacs Lisp, and we contributors can and do modify how it works on a
routine, ongoing basis.  I checked in a change this past Monday that I
worked up in 10 minutes, in response to which someone else checked in
an improvement (generalizing it to both Emacs and XEmacs, in an area
where I hadn't realized there was a difference) less than an hour later.

Basic user configuration of Gnus, completely independent of altering
how the code works, is as extensive and modifiable as any program
you've ever used anywhere, to the point that Gnus gets criticized for
being *too* configurable -- there are so many buttons to push and
knobs to twist that the new user sometimes gets lost.  A great
improvement came when the customize library was created (in large
part, *for* Gnus), which provides a button-clicky way of managing
configurable data bits, but considering that there are over 1100
customizable variables and another 1300+ internal variables that are
nonetheless tweakable by the user, you would have a very tough row to
hoe to complain of finding insufficient "modifiability" here.

All this is just to make clear that I think you have a need to
re-think your idea of where "modifiability" and "effective
interaction" lie.  Your "notably Windows" Microsoft environment was
not the first and will not be the last word on that issue.

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