Re: GNU ELPA package for CC-mode

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Stefan.

On Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 19:45:52 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:

[ .... ]

> Finally, GNU ELPA packages are very rarely installed on Emacs<24 and
> XEmacs, so backward incompatibilities are slightly less severe than
> what you experience with your own distribution of CC-mode.

I'm highly unlikely to introduce backward incompatibilities with Emacs
26.  Somebody else using master as a development platform is more likely
to do so.  But perhaps, as you say, this isn't really such a big issue.

> >> So I'm thinking of adding the patch below to elpa.git, which will
> >> cause elpa.gnu.org to automatically construct a GNU ELPA package of
> >> CC-mode (from the lisp/progmode/cc-*.el files in emacs.git).  If we
> >> do that, then a new CC-mode ELPA package will be automatically
> >> constructed when the "Version:" header of cc-mode.el is modified.
> > This will need some new scheme for version numbers.
> >> I just pushed to trunk a commit which added a "Version: 5.33.1"
> >> header to cc-mode.el.
> > What sort of "header"?

> Search for "5.33" in the cc-mode.el of the master branch.

Ah.  So it's metadata written into a source file.  I'm against this.
Would it not be possible to store the version number elsewhere?
Metadata in ordinary files is ugly and causes problems.  A significant
one being that VCS logs get polluted by updates of metadata, making it
unpleasant, or even difficult, to use a log display.

This "Version:" header certainly has no place in master, though I can
see an argument being made for it being included in an ELPA version of
CC Mode.

> > No, 5.34 will be for the next standalone version (which hopefully won't
> > be too far away).  I think the right thing to do will be to generate the
> > "header" version number from the actual version number, and append some
> > suffix characterising the ELPA version, which would be automatically
> > incremented as commits are made to CC Mode.  Maybe.  Somehow.

> The generation of the new package happens when the "Version:" header
> changes, so I don't think we want this header to be auto-generated on
> every commit.

"Changes" is a verb with an agent.  Under what scenario do you envisage
this version number being changed?  Automatically upon a CC Mode commit
to master is what I thought you had in mind.  Are you suggesting doing
this by hand when it takes somebody's fancy?

>         Stefan

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).