Re: Subprojects in project.el

["João Távora" <joaotavora@gmail.com>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> The idea of customizing the projects with a list of relative subproject
>> directory file names solves those downsides, but comes with lack of
>> automation: you have to do it for every relevant project, and not forget to
>> update the settings as the project structure changes. Which might also be
>> a pain e.g. when switching branches, if your dir-locals.el is not
>> checked in.
>>
>> Perhaps we'll ultimately end up with both ways to do this inside project.el,
>> but that feels redundant.
>
> How 'bout something more "organic":
> allow the user to interactively indicate "this is the root of the
> current project" and save that info in some customization file?
>
> IOW instead of having the users edit the customization info by hand,
> allow them to edit it indirectly when they notice that Emacs doesn't
> give the result they expected?

I'm usually not a fan of these solutions.  If marker files are
available, they negate their benefits (i.e. it breaks when you move the
project around).

If marker files are not available then I would have some piece of
configuration lying around in some special place, format and language
that is not the usual elisp.  The same configuration might as well have
been coded with existing idioms (i.e. dir-locals-set-directory-class)
and kept as Lisp in my init file.

That said, I'm not against adding yet another project-definition
facility that project.el can be made to understand.  It's not hard to
imagine a member of project-find-functions supporting the customization
file you suggest.

João