Re: Option to not automatically customize-save-variable `package-selected-packages'

[Joost Kremers <joostkremers@fastmail.fm>]

On Thu, Feb 18 2016, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> I see no fundamental difference
> between saving the value of a defcustom and saving the list of
> packages the user decided to install.

I think the main difference is that as a user, I can decide *not* to use
Customize to set a particular defcustom. I can use a setq in my init
file instead.

My ~/.emacs.d directory is in Dropbox and is shared across three
computers. For certain reasons, not all settings are identical across
the three machines. I use Customize for those settings that are
identical, and I use setq's in my init file to handle those cases where
I want different values for a defcustom.

In the same way, I have different collections of installed packages on
each computer. If the list of installed packages is saved in
custom-set-variables, it'll get sync'ed across my three computers, but
it won't reflect the actual list of packages on each machine. (Either
that, or I'll have a bunch of conflicted copies of the file where I keep
my Customize settings.)

I can see the logic behind saving the list of user-installed packages in
custom-set-variables, but IMHO the user should have the option of
specifying a different location for saving this info. I would keep it
outside ~/.emacs.d, just as I keep `package-user-dir' outside ~/.emacs.d.


-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments