Development Emacs based on Emacs and magit.

Development Emacs based on Emacs and magit.

[Hongyi Zhao]

This is a cont'd discussion for some recent topics on Emacs itself
development environment. I've noitced the magit project which is a git
porcelain inside Emacs. So, I think the combination of Emacs and magit
should be able to facilitate the current Emacs development workflow
described here [1], such as the trick discussed in this blog [3].

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Sending-Patches.html.
[2] https://github.com/magit/magit
[3] https://prathamesh.tech/2019/06/21/creating-pull-requests-from-emacs/

Regards,
Hongyi
-- 
Assoc. Prof. Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com>
Theory and Simulation of Materials
Hebei Vocational University of Technology and Engineering
No. 473, Quannan West Street, Xindu District, Xingtai, Hebei province

Re: Development Emacs based on Emacs and magit.

[Alexander Adolf]

Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com> writes:

> [...] such as the trick discussed in this blog [3].
>
> [...]
> [3] https://prathamesh.tech/2019/06/21/creating-pull-requests-from-emacs/

The title of the linked post seems slightly misleading, since I can of
course create pull requests in magit. The post explains how trigger from
within Emacs visiting the web page for the PR in a browser, should that
ever be desired. Pull requests can be created, managed, and merged from
within magit without ever leaving Emacs.

Nonetheless you have a point in that thanks to magit, the only times I
will have to visit a git forge's website is to create and manage my
account there, and to create and delete repositories. Everything else
can be done from within magit and forge in Emacs.

  --alexander

Re: Development Emacs based on Emacs and magit.

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Alexander Adolf <alexander.adolf@condition-alpha.com>
> Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2021 17:48:16 +0200
> 
> Nonetheless you have a point in that thanks to magit, the only times I
> will have to visit a git forge's website is to create and manage my
> account there, and to create and delete repositories. Everything else
> can be done from within magit and forge in Emacs.

This is not about you or me or any other power user of Emacs.  This is
about occasional contributors to Emacs, who are accustomed to use the
PR workflow via Web forms.  IMO it would be counter-productive to
request those contributors to install and use Magit, just to be able
to submit a change to us.

Re: Development Emacs based on Emacs and magit.

[Hongyi Zhao]

On Thu, Sep 9, 2021 at 12:26 AM Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> > From: Alexander Adolf <alexander.adolf@condition-alpha.com>
> > Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2021 17:48:16 +0200
> >
> > Nonetheless you have a point in that thanks to magit, the only times I
> > will have to visit a git forge's website is to create and manage my
> > account there, and to create and delete repositories. Everything else
> > can be done from within magit and forge in Emacs.
>
> This is not about you or me or any other power user of Emacs.  This is
> about occasional contributors to Emacs, who are accustomed to use the
> PR workflow via Web forms.  IMO it would be counter-productive to
> request those contributors to install and use Magit, just to be able
> to submit a change to us.

Thank you for pointing this out. Considering that Emacs is patched so
frequently, has it already implemented a complete
workflow/module/macro/function to wrap the steps described here [1]
with just several or one keystroke?

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Sending-Patches.html

Best, Hongyi

Re: Development Emacs based on Emacs and magit.

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2021 07:11:41 +0800
> Cc: Alexander Adolf <alexander.adolf@condition-alpha.com>, Emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > This is not about you or me or any other power user of Emacs.  This is
> > about occasional contributors to Emacs, who are accustomed to use the
> > PR workflow via Web forms.  IMO it would be counter-productive to
> > request those contributors to install and use Magit, just to be able
> > to submit a change to us.
> 
> Thank you for pointing this out. Considering that Emacs is patched so
> frequently, has it already implemented a complete
> workflow/module/macro/function to wrap the steps described here [1]
> with just several or one keystroke?

No, because we don't want to force anything on the contributor's
workflow.  Developing a change is not a one-keystroke thing, it
requires writing the code, testing it, sending the patch, receiving
review comments, modifying the code accordingly, etc. etc.  I don't
see how this could be done with a single keystroke, even in principle.

Re: Development Emacs based on Emacs and magit.

[André A. Gomes]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com>

>> Thank you for pointing this out. Considering that Emacs is patched so
>> frequently, has it already implemented a complete
>> workflow/module/macro/function to wrap the steps described here [1]
>> with just several or one keystroke?
>
> No, because we don't want to force anything on the contributor's
> workflow.  Developing a change is not a one-keystroke thing, it
> requires writing the code, testing it, sending the patch, receiving
> review comments, modifying the code accordingly, etc. etc.  I don't
> see how this could be done with a single keystroke, even in principle.

I agree with Eli.

Even if such a single keystroke exists, how could it be useful?
Sculpting a patch is a creative activity, to some extent.  The drudgery
that might be associated with it is mitigated by a manifold of tools.
Those can be grabbed and composed as the wizard wishes.  Indeed, there's
no "ultimate" or "general" tool that mitigates all the drudgery.  But
that's obvious, no?  Tools can't get "ahead" of the problems they solve.
Perhaps that single keystroke would be yet another layer that obscures
the required real (creative) work.  There's no "recipe book" to
follow---it's part of the fun.

From my perspective, the "system" that handles patches in Emacs is
developed enough.  In fact, as an outsider, I gaze at it in awe.

The bottleneck is doing the creative work, NOT sharing it.  When the
wizard loves his craft, they go to ANY lengths to show it.  The
idiosyncrasies of the reviewing entity are not an issue.


--
André A. Gomes
"Free Thought, Free World"

Re: Development Emacs based on Emacs and magit.

[Alexander Adolf]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Alexander Adolf <alexander.adolf@condition-alpha.com>
>> Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2021 17:48:16 +0200
>> 
>> Nonetheless you have a point in that thanks to magit, the only times I
>> will have to visit a git forge's website is to create and manage my
>> account there, and to create and delete repositories. Everything else
>> can be done from within magit and forge in Emacs.
>
> This is not about you or me or any other power user of Emacs.  This is
> about occasional contributors to Emacs, who are accustomed to use the
> PR workflow via Web forms.  IMO it would be counter-productive to
> request those contributors to install and use Magit, just to be able
> to submit a change to us.

Fully agree.

I guess my - admittedly poorly expressed - intention was to make the
point that, in addition to allowing "web users" accustomed to using web
forms to do just that, long-standing contributors could use magit and
continue doing everything from within Emacs. So my hope was that this
could help making/keeping both "camps" happy.


Cheers,

  --alexander