Re: Git version of ELPA

[Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>]

On 14.08.2013 18:30, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> 2) If packages/js2-mode and git@github.com:mooz/js2-mode.git differ in files
>> they contain, I imagine we'll have more errors or conflicts to deal with.
>
> Yes and no: the "push" would simply force the github version to have
> the same content as the elpa version.

The push just after the removal commit would end up fine. But if you 
don't do it, later you may end up having to fight the divergence each 
time you go back and forth.

> No conflict, but an undesirable
> outcome, so you end up having to do it somewhat by hand (you can use
> "git subtree split" to help, but there's still a manual intervention
> needed).

I can't confidently say it's always so (in certain good conditions), but 
I've seen it succeed without manual intervention.

And "git subtree push" also seems to call "git subtree split" when required.

>>> In any case it's the responsibility of the package's maintainer to feed
>>> elpa changes back to the external branch, if any.
>> Maybe so. But 'git subtree' seems to make this less painful, as long as ELPA
>> doesn't go deliberately out of sync.
>
> Yes.  The elpa-diffs email as well (a copy is sent to the maintainer).

Never seen that working before. Is that a recent change?

>>> Currently, you can have extra (ignored) files only for singlefile
>>> packages.  Multifile packages will package up whatever is present.
>>> But it should be easy to add some way to list files that should be
>>> skipped.  IOW, same as above "patch is welcome, tho you might like to
>>> wait a bit".
>> I'd welcome a suggestion for the exact mechanism.
>
> A simple solution is to not remove those files from the `elpa' branch.
> I.e. consider it as a "local change".  It might lead to spurious
> conflicts when merging, tho.

Not sure I understand. I didn't suggest removing them.
What changes, and "local" to what?

If you mean the file listing the ignores, I'm sure it'll be fine to keep 
it in the upstream repo, too. Maybe Melpa even ends up using them, too.

>> List them in a file called .elpa-includes'?
>
> I'd rather have a list of exclusions than a list of inclusions, but
> other than that I guess that'd be right.  So we could easily handle
> a list of exclusions by passing the list to "tar".

Exclusions are fine by me, too. So, file name ".elpaignore", syntax 
similar to ".gitignore" (one glob per line)?