Re: [NonGNU ELPA] New package: sweep

[Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>]

Eshel Yaron <eshelshay.yaron@gmail.com> writes:

> Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> Eshel Yaron <eshelshay.yaron@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:
>>>
>>>>> I would like to submit a new package to NonGNU ELPA, called "sweep":
>>>>
>>>> May I ask what the name is supposed to mean?
>>>
>>> Of course, but there's not a lot of depth to it, basically its derived
>>> from "SWI-P(rolog)", with the "I" replaced with two "e"s for
>>> "Emacs-Embedded".  So a possible backronym may be
>>> "SW(I) Emacs-Embedded Prolog".
>>
>> I agree with RMS (<E1odDGZ-0005aw-79@fencepost.gnu.org>) that it might
>> be nice to have a more indicative name, or at least something that
>> includes "Prolog".  Mor eso because "sweep" makes me think of something
>> that cleans.
>
> I've given it some thought, and all in all I would like to keep the name
> `sweep` for this project.  I do see however why this name may be
> unhelpful for Emacs users who are not familiar with SWI-Prolog, or who
> are looking for some "cleaning" package...  As a possible solution, I'd
> be happy to change the name of the Elisp package to `sweeprolog` while
> still referring to the project as a whole as `sweep` (e.g. in the
> manual).  Does that sounds alright?

I think that would be nice, and there shouldn't be a need to rename the
entire project.

>>>> From briefly skimming through the code I see that you define a new major
>>>> that doesn't inherit from the default `prolog-mode'.  Is there a reason
>>>> not to do so, or even implement sweep as a minor mode?
>>>
>>> I am not opposed to building on top of `prolog-mode`, but since
>>> `sweep-mode` has access to the actual SWI-Prolog runtime including
>>> notably its parser, we can (and do) provide better implementations for
>>> many of the features of `prolog-mode`, at the cost of targeting only
>>> SWI-Prolog where `prolog-mode` is more implementation agnostic.
>>> For example, `sweep-mode` defines an `indent-line-function` which takes
>>> into account the dynamic operator definitions that may occur in Prolog
>>> code.
>>> So currently I'm not sure what will be the benefits of inheriting
>>> from `prolog-mode`, but I'll gladly revisit it as missing features in
>>> `sweep-mode` pop up.  Does that make sense?
>>
>> The main advantage I see would be that anyone who uses `prolog-mode'
>> could inherit their customisations when using sweep.  And it shouldn't
>> be an issue if sweep-mode overrides most of what `prolog-mode' defines.
>
> That makes sense, thanks.  I'll try deriving from `prolog-mode` and if
> no unexpected issues come up I'll go with that.

Great!

>> Is the error self-explanatory, in the sense that a user would be able to
>> understand that SWI Prolog is outdated?
>
> Currently it's a generic `file-missing` error, I'll improve on that.

If you could detect that error and combine it with a version check of
the SWI Prolog installation, I think that you could generate a helpful
message.

>> There are some packages that build software themselves
>> (e.g. pdf-tools), but I don't think that issue has ever been solved in
>> a clean and robust way.
>
> Yes, I've also taken notes from the `vterm` package, which seems to take
> a rather ad-hoc approach (see e.g. `vterm-module-compile`).

This ought to be addressed in a more general way at some point.