Re: Adding the `prescient` packages to NonGNU ELPA?

[Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>]

Okamsn <okamsn@protonmail.com> writes:

> Hello,

Hi,

> Would you be willing to add Prescient[1] and some of its related
> packages to NonGNU ELPA, as in the attached file? I am one of the
> maintainers of this package. The author of the package does not wish to
> assign copyright or require others to do so, so it cannot be added to
> GNU ELPA.
>
> Prescient is for sorting and filtering completion candidates. Its
> filtering is similar to the package Orderless and it sorts by a
> combination of the frequency and the recency of the candidates.

From what I recall, Vertico does that too, but Vertico is a completion
front-end?  Intuitively I would have also guessed that the front-end is
the right place to solve this problem.

Or maybe to rephrase the question, what does this package provide over
vertico + orderless?

> These are the packages I am wondering if you would be willing to add:
>
> - `prescient`: The base package, which provides the sorting and
>     filtering functions and a completion style
>
> - `company-prescient`: Use `prescient` sorting with Company
>
> - `corfu-prescient`: Use `prescient` sorting and filtering with Corfu
>
> - `vertico-prescient`: Use `prescient` sorting and filtering with Vertico

Could you explain the need for these other packages?  If we are talking
about a completion style, why do other packages require their own
support?

> All of these packages live in the same repository in the link below.

Would it be possible to change this?  E.g. by making each project live
on it's own branch.  That would make the :ignored-files rules below a
lot simpler.

> When I tried testing the installation of `prescient`, it installed
> an older version of the file `prescient.el` than what is current in the
> repository. This was the version that received an update to the version
> number, but how does the system decide which is the most recent stable
> version of a file? I might need to increase the number to make it
> install a newer version.

Yes, ELPA finds the last commit that changed the version header and uses
that to prepare a release.

> Thank you.
>
>
> [1]: https://github.com/radian-software/prescient.el
>
> From f2d4107036e5be8b97de83663e47aeb5a670a301 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: okamsn <okamsn@protonmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2022 21:13:05 -0500
> Subject: [PATCH] First attempt at adding packages.
>
> ---
>  elpa-packages | 40 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 40 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/elpa-packages b/elpa-packages
> index eb69320ee2..a15d60370b 100644
> --- a/elpa-packages
> +++ b/elpa-packages
> @@ -484,6 +484,46 @@
>   ("popup"		:url "https://github.com/auto-complete/popup-el"
>    :ignored-files ("LICENSE"))
>  
> + ("prescient"           :url "https://github.com/radian-software/prescient.el"
> +  :branch "main"
> +  :news "CHANGELOG.md"
> +  :mainfile "prescient.el"
> +  :readme "README.md"
> +  :ignored-files ("Dockerfile" "LICENSE.md" "Makefile" "company-prescient.el"
> +                  "corfu-prescient.el" "ivy-prescient.el" "scripts"
> +                  "selectrum-prescient.el" "stub" "vertico-prescient.el"
> +                  ".dir-locals.el" ".github" ".gitignore"))
> +
> + ("vertico-prescient"   :url "https://github.com/radian-software/prescient.el"
> +  :branch "main"
> +  :news "CHANGELOG.md"
> +  :mainfile "vertico-prescient.el"
> +  :readme "README.md"
> +  :ignored-files ("Dockerfile" "LICENSE.md" "Makefile" "company-prescient.el"
> +                  "corfu-prescient.el" "ivy-prescient.el" "prescient.el"
> +                  "scripts" "selectrum-prescient.el" "stub" ".dir-locals.el"
> +                  ".github" ".gitignore"))
> +
> + ("corfu-prescient"     :url "https://github.com/radian-software/prescient.el"
> +  :branch "main"
> +  :news "CHANGELOG.md"
> +  :mainfile "corfu-prescient.el"
> +  :readme "README.md"
> +  :ignored-files ("Dockerfile" "LICENSE.md" "Makefile" "company-prescient.el"
> +                  "ivy-prescient.el" "prescient.el" "scripts"
> +                  "selectrum-prescient.el" "stub" "vertico-prescient.el"
> +                  ".dir-locals.el" ".github" ".gitignore"))
> +
> + ("company-prescient"   :url "https://github.com/radian-software/prescient.el"
> +  :branch "main"
> +  :news "CHANGELOG.md"
> +  :mainfile "company-prescient.el"
> +  :readme "README.md"
> +  :ignored-files ("Dockerfile" "LICENSE.md" "Makefile" "corfu-prescient.el"
> +                  "ivy-prescient.el" "prescient.el" "scripts"
> +                  "selectrum-prescient.el" "stub" "vertico-prescient.el"
> +                  ".dir-locals.el" ".github" ".gitignore"))
> +
>   ("projectile"  	:url "https://github.com/bbatsov/projectile"
>    :ignored-files ("LICENSE" "doc" "test")
>    :news "CHANGELOG.md")