Re: emacs-29 9b775ddc057 1/2: ; * etc/EGLOT-NEWS: Fix wording of last change.

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Sat, 6 May 2023 18:26:11 +0300
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev>
> 
> >> One more time: in Emacs 28 package-install doesn't upgrade,
> >> but it installs the latest, which is incompatible behaviour
> >> if you move to Emacs 29, where that won't happen.
> > 
> > Is this for Eglot (and use-package), or is this for any package
> > installed from ELPA?  IOW, does Emacs 29's package-install still
> > install the latest version of a package from ELPA?  And does that
> > happen even if some older version of a package is already installed?
> 
> Like Joao said:
> 
>    Yes to the first, no to the second.

Yes, except that I asked 3 questions, not 2, and the first was "either
or", so saying "yes" doesn't help.  But never mind.

> Meaning, 'M-x package-install' will install the latest version (or some 
> available version) from ELPA, if the package is not installed.
> 
> If some version of it is installed from ELPA (!) already, 'M-x 
> package-install' won't upgrade.

Then I don't understand why you decided to drop the similar change to
package-upgrade.  At the time I thought package-install can be used as
an alternative, but if it cannot, I think we should add to
package-upgrade the same optional behavior of upgrading a built-in
package as we have in package-install.

What other methods currently exist to upgrade an already installed
package (or a non-built-in package that is already installed)?  I know
about one -- via lisp-packages (a.k.a. package menu); are there
others?

Will any of these methods upgrade a built-in package, at least as an
optional behavior?

> >> So if you're used to setting up a brand new Emacs 28 and
> >> package-install Eglot to get versions with nice features and
> >> bugfixes, you may be dismayed to find that doing the very
> >> same thing in Emacs 29 results in what will probably be a
> >> old version.
> > 
> > Are you talking about users who didn't update their Eglot, except when
> > a new Emacs version was released?  Or are you talking about users who
> > updated Eglot from ELPA (using package-install) even between Emacs
> > releases?  Or are you talking about something else entirely?
> 
> He is mostly talking about users who e.g. wiped their config directory 
> and ~/.emacs.d/elpa and are starting anew. Or just deleted 
> ~/.emacs.d/elpa/eglot-xxxxxx.

Is this what many users do?  I'd be surprised, but maybe I'm missing
something.

> In that situation, indeed, 'M-x 
> package-install' will install the latest version from ELPA.
> 
> In Emacs 29, however, it won't. Because one version of Eglot is 
> available already (built-in).

But if emptying ~/.emacs.d/elpa is not a frequent use case, why should
we care about it so much?  It sounds like bug#62720 and the entire
long dispute that followed were focused on this strange use pattern,
instead of talking about more reasonable upgrade scenarios?

> I'm pretty sure I have outlined this twice already, not too long ago. 
> Prefacing the first message with an apology, saying I had been 
> previously confused myself.

I apologize for being confused and for asking almost the same
questions repeatedly, but given that fact that even people who are
familiar with package.el are confused, I think I'm in good company.