Subject: Pine vs Elm

From: [email-masked] (Timothy Murphy)
Date: 13 Aug 1995 02:12:43 +0100

I have to choose between elm and pine
for a large (180) freshman class next year.

What are the merits and demerits of these rivals ?

Neither seems to come with very good documentation.
[I'd prefer something in texinfo format, given a choice.]
Is there any independent documentation available?

What are the relative usages of the two ?
Are both reasonably certain to survive ?

Any and all opinions gratefully received.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: [email-masked]
tel: +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

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From: Elizabeth Malekzadeh <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Aug 1995 14:24:37 GMT

--------------------
Personally, I prefer pine!
I've been using both for quite a while and IMHO it's much easier to use pine.
However, using elm, you can (for example) "read" MIME attachments without down
loading the stuff.. with pine you have to write it in a file first.
Hard to say which one is better... both have their positive and negative sides!

-- 
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%THOUGHT OF THE WEEK%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
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%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% can only be understood backwards. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
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%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% "SOREN KIERKEGAARD" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

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From: [email-masked] (Ralph Sims)
Date: 13 Aug 1995 15:22:24 GMT

>What are the merits and demerits of these rivals ?

Use whichever one is easier to support.  I have found that pine
is better than elm for neophytes, as they usually need to be
retrained after taking a lunch break.

Besides, Pine Is Neo-logistically Elm.
--
 Northwest Nexus, Inc. - Professional Internet Services
         ISDN -- don't take SLOW for an answer!
   [email-masked],  finger [email-masked], or:
  <URL:http://www.halcyon.com>   +1 206 455 3505 voice

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From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 1995 10:12:19 -0700 (PDT)

On 13 Aug 1995, Elizabeth Malekzadeh wrote:

> I've been using both for quite a while and IMHO it's much easier to use
> pine.  However, using elm, you can (for example) "read" MIME attachments
> without down loading the stuff.. with pine you have to write it in a
> file first.  Hard to say which one is better... both have their positive
> and negative sides!
>

Huh?  Pine should be able to read any almost valid MIME attachment without
downloading.  What kind of attachments are you having trouble with?

|\ |  |\/|  David L. Miller    [email-masked]  (206) 685-6240
|/ |_ |  |  Software Engineer, Pine Development Team   (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
University of Washington, Networks & Distributed Computing, JE-20
4545 15th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA

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From: [email-masked] (Andreas Klemm)
Date: 17 Aug 1995 09:50:55 GMT

Elizabeth Malekzadeh (umunk.GUN.de!kitten) wrote:
: I have to choose between elm and pine
: for a large (180) freshman class next year.

: What are the merits and demerits of these rivals ?

: Neither seems to come with very good documentation.

Seems to me that you never got the whole sources ...

Speaking for elm I can say, that it comes with a nice and
complete documentation... All you need is nroff/groff to
format the manuals...

Using elm and pine is mainly a matter of taste and functionality.

I personally prefer elm with PGP patches applied, because I like
the feature of mail encryption.

Additionaly I dislike pine's automatically conversion of
special characters into quoted printable (or whatever name
that encoding has). Many other mail recipients don't have a
mailer handy, that can decode quoted printable. You can't turn
off this feature 'til pine 3.91.

I's suggest starting with elm, it has a fine documentation and
is really smart and easy to use. Start with a low user level,
so your course isn't stressed by too many options in the option
menue ...

	Andreas ///

--
[email-masked]        /\/\___ Wiechers & Partner Datentechnik GmbH
Andreas Klemm     ___/\/\/        - Support Unix -

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From: [email-masked] (Timothy Murphy)
Date: 18 Aug 1995 04:21:47 +0100

>complete documentation... All you need is nroff/groff to

Just to explain -- I made the original comment --
I'm afraid I regard nroff as obsolete,
and don't consider documentation in this format
to be adequate.

Maybe that is a very unusual perception.

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From: [email-masked] (Russell Fulton)
Date: 18 Aug 1995 08:53:05 GMT

>and don't consider documentation in this format

Why does it matter how the documentation is marked up so long as you can
easily print it? Personally I agree that *roff is an abomination but no
long as no one asks me to use it to write my documentations I don't care
if others choose to. It does have the unparalled advantage that it is
available on most UNIX systems.

Complaining about Elm's documentaion because it is marked up using *roff
is a bit like saying that the wine is no good because the bottle is
covered with dust and cobwebs.

Cheers, Russell.
--
Russell Fulton, Computer Center, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
<[email-masked]>

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 08:17:30

> I have to choose betwwen elm and pine

Among other activities, my group supports e-mail on PC's and
UNIX systems for about 70 users (faculty, staff, and graduate
students).  On the UNIX system, which accounts for about 95%
of all our groups e-mail, both elm and pine are available.

Virtually all our users chose pine, primarily because it is easier
to learn.  Even a few users who were already familiar with elm
on another campus system moved to pine once we set up our system
about four years ago.  At that time, the following elements made
pine the choice:

  - Far easier addressbook manipulation.  It was (and is) well integrated
    into the pine system, it was full-screen, and generally very easy to
    update and modify.

  - Far easier folder manipulation.  Again, it was full screen, and again
    the ability to manipulate folders, was far superior to the version of
    elm we used at that time.

  - Easier access to, and better self-documentation of the configuration 
    file.

  - Pine could read, and post to, newsgroups then.  To the best of my 
    knowledge, elm couldn't.

Features that the current version of pine has that are important to us
include:

  - MIME

  - IMAP (as we begin to shift the locus of our mail user agents to the desktop).

mark keintz
Computer Core Director
Population Studies Center
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Timothy Murphy)
Date: 20 Aug 1995 21:33:34 +0100

>easily print it?

I explained that my comment was personal,
and quite likely does not apply to others.
In brief, I want to distribute the documents to 250 users,
and I don't have a high-quality nroff/troff to PostScript driver
on my system.

I did in fact print out the elm and pine documents
on my Linux box.
I didn't think either set of documents was very good.
Just my opinion.

I would have preferred documentation in LaTeX or texinfo format.
Just my preference.

Incidentally, I received about a dozen replies,
10--2 in favour of pine,
nearly always on the grounds that it was easier for beginners.

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From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: 21 Aug 1995 22:56:26 GMT

>nearly always on the grounds that it was easier for beginners.

Add my vote for Pine, but for the reason that it's more 
powerful than Elm.  I used Elm for years but as soon as
Pine 3.91 was released I jumped ship (tree) for Pine!

Nancy

--
Nancy McGough                 Primary Web: http://www.jazzie.com/ii/
Infinite Ink                   Mirror Web: http://www.best.com/~ii/

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From: [email-masked] (Andreas Klemm)
Date: 21 Aug 1995 14:28:54 GMT

Russell Fulton ([email-masked]) wrote:
: [email-masked] (Timothy Murphy) writes:
: >[email-masked] (Andreas Klemm) writes:

: >>: Neither seems to come with very good documentation.

: >>Speaking for elm I can say, that it comes with a nice and
: >>complete documentation... All you need is nroff/groff to
: >>format the manuals...

: >Just to explain -- I made the original comment --
: >I'm afraid I regard nroff as obsolete,
: >and don't consider documentation in this format
: >to be adequate.

: Why does it matter how the documentation is marked up so long as you can
: easily print it? Personally I agree that *roff is an abomination but no
: long as no one asks me to use it to write my documentations I don't care
: if others choose to. It does have the unparalled advantage that it is
: available on most UNIX systems.

: Complaining about Elm's documentaion because it is marked up using *roff
: is a bit like saying that the wine is no good because the bottle is
: covered with dust and cobwebs.

nroff might be relatively old, but it's _source_...

I think I don't have to explain the advantages, to have 
documentation source available ....

Using groff -Tps you can easily produce Postscript output if you
need. But as Russel already stated out, you _can_ print the docu
and read it after that. The printed document is nicely formatted,
that counts !

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From: [email-masked] (Andreas Klemm)
Date: 23 Aug 1995 12:24:09 GMT

Nancy McGough ([email-masked]) wrote:
: [email-masked] (Timothy Murphy) writes:
: >Incidentally, I received about a dozen replies,
: >10--2 in favour of pine,
: >nearly always on the grounds that it was easier for beginners.

: Add my vote for Pine, but for the reason that it's more 
: powerful than Elm.  I used Elm for years but as soon as
: Pine 3.91 was released I jumped ship (tree) for Pine!

I'd agree, if pine had 

	- pgp support
	- a switch to turn off encoding mails with quoted_printable
	- better command handling. I'm much faster with elm.
	- the feature "alias current message"

But you are generally right. Pine is a nice mailer ...
But elm is a nice mailer, too ;-)

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From: [email-masked] (Timothy Murphy)
Date: 23 Aug 1995 22:59:31 +0100

>documentation source available ....

Using Linux I am probably spoiled,
but I expect programs to come with .texi manual,
for printing with TeX or viewing with info.

I can't argue with someone who likes nroff.

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From: [email-masked] (Louis Lesko)
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 19:02:58 GMT

I started on pine, real easy for the beginner.  But as I became more
familiar with unix, I found elm to be more powerful and much more
customizable for individual tastes.   Another thing I like about elm over
pine is that its fast.  Quick in, quick out.  I think this is one of those
arguments thats doomed to a circular existence.  Both programs have an equal
amount of pro's and cons.   Elm seems to be more compatible with other unix
programs which is a big bonus.
Pine offers news reading capabilities, but the programs set up as
newsreader only do a superior job.
Cheers,
-- 
LOU-

Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly
go when things have got about as bad as they reasonably get.

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From: [email-masked] (J.C. Webber III)
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 10:31:34 GMT

>	- the feature "alias current message"

I've checked the FM, but I can't find a reverence to "alias current message".
What command invokes this feature and what does it accomplish?
Why would someone want to alias a message?  What does it mean to
alias a message?

thx...
-- 
J.C. Webber III        [email-masked] (work) [email-masked] (home)
"Comparing Dos to UNIX is like comparing a mix-master to a chef's kitchen"

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From: Sven Guckes <[email-masked]>
Date: 28 Aug 95 17:39:30 GMT

[email-masked] (J.C. Webber III) writes:
>Why would someone want to alias a message?
>What does it mean to alias a message?

Well, it actually means
"create an alias of the return address of the current mail".

This is bound to "a a".
The first "a" goes to the "Alias Menu", the second aliases the (return
address of the) curent mail.

This is described on the "ELM Alias FAQ" page:
	http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/elm/elm.alias.faq.html

Sven

Cc: [email-masked] (J.C. Webber III)

-- 
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ELM versions:  Latest release:  ELM 2.4 PL24 || Latest alpha:  ELM 2.5a06
The "ELM Pages" - all about ELM on the World Wide Web:
     http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/elm/                 [950825]

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From: Paul O Bartlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 19:27:49 -0400

On 28 Aug 1995, Sven Guckes wrote (excerpted):

| Well, it actually means
| "create an alias of the return address of the current mail".

    To do this in Pine (at least, what I think you are wanting), press T 
when viewing a message to "T"ake the address into the addressbook.  Pine 
will prompt you for the nickname you want to use and will give you the 
opportunity (if you want) to modify the fullname and the email address.

Paul
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P. O. Box 857     Vienna, VA 22183-0857     U.S.A.
Finger, keyserver, or email for PGP 2.6 public key
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