Re: GNU ELPA package for CC-mode

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Stefan.

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 18:17:19 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > For packages which already have some "version" string somewhere, why
> > cannot we teach package.el to look for them, when it doesn't find the
> > "Version:" header?

> We could implement workarounds, of course.  The more, the messier.

The situation is already messy.  And you're suggesting in your next
paragraph increasing the messiness in CC Mode.

> In the case of CC-mode, I still don't know what's so much better about
> putting the version in cc-defs.el's `c-version` variable.

It's a lisp variable, hence can be readily used by programs and people
at runtime.  c-version has existed a long time and would necessitate
work to replace by a comment in a different file together with
workarounds to turn it into a variable.

Or, perhaps, c-version and the Version: header mean two different
things, and it would be a mistake to try to merge them into one.  It's
not clear exactly what Version: is.

> At least in the case of Tramp, I believe I understand the problem to be
> that Michael doesn't want tools to modify human-written files, but that
> explanation doesn't work for CC-mode.

Going back to an early post in this thread, the idea was to get an ELPA
version of CC Mode "automatically".  That phrase carries notions of
"effortlessly" and "painlessly".  I have pointed out pain with the
current proposal, namely the "pollution" of the Emacs master repository
with things concerning only ELPA.

> > I think this should be easy to implement (we could ask the package
> > maintainers to add something or use some standard format, if what we
> > already have is not enough),

> "Use some standard format" is exactly what "Version:" is.

Version: is a comment, not a lisp variable.  It's not totally clear what
it's for, and how it works, though some of your recent posts have
helped here.  Where should Version: be documented?

>         Stefan

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).