bug#51660: 28.0.50; No mention of compilation step in section 'Package Installation' of the Emacs manual

bug#51660: 28.0.50; No mention of compilation step in section 'Package Installation' of the Emacs manual

[dalanicolai]

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This report is about a minor documentation bug.

Because of some confusion about some seemingly 'inconsistent' error
(FYI it is described at
https://github.com/jkitchin/org-ref/issues/925#issuecomment-958185510),
I was trying to confirm (look up) if installation of a package implies
compilation of the package also.

Then I found that it (the word 'compile') is not mentioned in section '48.3
Package Installation'
(
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Package-Installation.html
)
of the Emacs manual.

It is 'implied' in section `48 Emacs Lisp Packages` and it is explicitly
mentioned in section '41.1 Packaging Basics` of the Elisp manual. But I
would prefer (consider it better practice/more helpful) to mention again,
explicitly, in section '48.3 Package Installation' what it means for a
package to get installed, as that is the section a user typically looks
at/finds first.

This is just a suggestion (notification) of course, just because now I
could not 'easily/intuitively' find the correct answer.


In GNU Emacs 28.0.50 (build 3, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.30,
cairo version 1.17.4)
 of 2021-09-06 built on daniel-fedora
Repository revision: c4724add006e62b81f847937db56335a81bdcc74
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12101002
System Description: Fedora 34 (Workstation Edition)

Configured using:
 'configure --with-mailutils --with-cairo --with-modules --with-pgtk
 --with-native-compilation'

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG
JSON LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 M17N_FLT MODULES
NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND THREADS TIFF
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS X11 XDBE XIM XPM GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny dired dired-loaddefs
rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived epg rfc6068 epg-config gnus-util rmail
rmail-loaddefs auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs
eieio-loaddefs password-cache json map text-property-search time-date
subr-x seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv mm-decode mm-bodies
mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader cl-loaddefs
cl-lib sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils
iso-transl tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar
dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment
text-mode elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar
rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock
font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer cl-generic
cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech
european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite charscript charprop
case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray
cl-preloaded nadvice button loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files
window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages
mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote threads dbusbind
inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting
cairo move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process
native-compile emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 67485 9074)
 (symbols 48 6625 0)
 (strings 32 19331 1625)
 (string-bytes 1 659499)
 (vectors 16 13095)
 (vector-slots 8 260905 11713)
 (floats 8 22 32)
 (intervals 56 223 0)
 (buffers 992 11))

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bug#51660:

[dalanicolai]

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or make the text 'downloads and installs it' a link to section '41.1
Packaging Basics' of the Elisp manual

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bug#51660: 28.0.50; No mention of compilation step in section 'Package Installation' of the Emacs manual

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

dalanicolai <dalanicolai@gmail.com> writes:

> It is 'implied' in section `48 Emacs Lisp Packages` and it is
> explicitly mentioned in section '41.1 Packaging Basics` of the Elisp
> manual. But I would prefer (consider it better practice/more helpful)
> to mention again, explicitly, in section '48.3 Package Installation'
> what it means for a package to get installed, as that is the section a
> user typically looks at/finds first.

I've now mentioned compilation in that section in Emacs 29.