Re: ~/.gnus or ~/.gnus.el

[Cor]

Some entity, AKA Byung-Hee HWANG <bh@izb.knu.ac.kr>,
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)

>
> While i using Gnus, i'm woundering follow agenda. What is first? On
> startup Gnus. ~/.gnus or ~/.gnus.el? So confused to me. Currently, i'm
> using only ~/.gnus.el instead of ~/.gnus.

Well, it gets even more confusing.

When starting gnus it will search for a .gnus file or a .gnus.el or a
.gnus.elc, it even will check if the .gnus.el is not newer than the
.gnus.elc. (the latter being the compiled version of .gnus.el)

Either file will do the same job, as in being a lisp program that
changes and/or enhances the basic capabilities of gnus.   
The .gnus or .gnus.el will both be read, compiled and loaded.

M-x byte-compile-file or the option "byte-compile and load" from the
emacs-lisp section of the drop-down menu when editing a elisp (.el) file.

The compiled forms do load faster than the source-versions,
since they are the compiled versions of lisp programs
and do not need the compile action  after reading to load them.

In using .gnus.el as filename it sets a hook in the editing part of
emacs in emacs-elisp-mode to help editing the lisp-program you are
writing for gnus, where you can check 'regions' or the whole file for
any elisp-errors before loading it in an gnus instance.  
 
Cor

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