Re: [package-vc] Consider cleaning up files from install process

[Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net>]

I noticed this problem myself when I first tried using package-vc-install.

An alternative would be to follow Quelpa's example: rather than loading 
the package directly from the git repository's directory, the package's 
files could be copied into a new directory in the elpa/ directory, and 
Emacs could load the package from there.

As a developer, I would prefer that approach, because I don't usually 
want Emacs to load whatever commit I may have checked out in a package's 
repository.  I want to install a commit of a package into my Emacs 
configuration and have that one loaded until I install a different one.

In other words, the way package-vc-install currently works leaves me 
vulnerable to this scenario:

1.  I use package-vc-install to install one of my packages from its 
local repository directory.
2.  I check out a feature branch of that package to work on a new 
feature, saving some files but not loading any of the changed code.
3.  I restart Emacs (e.g. maybe I shut down the system and turned it 
back on the next day).
4.  That work-in-progress feature branch of my package gets loaded into 
Emacs automatically (which may be entirely broken, being a WIP).

Whereas if I use Quelpa, it installs the files a package's recipe 
specifies into the expected location in the elpa/ directory, and that 
remains independent of whatever I may have checked out in the package's 
local git directory.  My Emacs configuration and installed packages 
remain consistent regardless of whatever in-between state I may have 
left a package's repository in.

Philip, would you be willing to consider switching to that model for 
package-vc-install, or offering it as an option?

Thanks,
Adam