Re: Forcing reinstall in package.el

[Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:27:55 -0800 Phil Hagelberg <phil@hagelb.org> wrote: 

PH> 2010/12/14 Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>:
>> On Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:21:28 -0800 Phil Hagelberg <phil@hagelb.org> wrote:
>> 
PH> While doing development of packages using package.el, I often find
PH> myself reinstalling packages using M-x package-install-from-buffer.
PH> However, this is a bit cumbersome because I have to remember to delete
PH> the old version of the package out of my .emacs.d first. It would be
PH> nice for package-install-from-buffer to be able to take a prefix
PH> argument or something that would delete the package before attempting
PH> to install it.
>> 
PH> I volunteer to implement this if it's desired.
>> 
>> Asking the user to give a prefix argument puts a burden on them.  Can
>> `package-install-from-buffer' figure out if it needs to delete the old
>> package on its own, with maybe a y-or-n prompt at the end?

PH> To be honest, I'd prefer it if overwriting were the default behaviour
PH> for all installations, but I hesitated to suggest a wide-sweeping
PH> change like that. =) 

I think that's reasonable, since the user chooses what to upgrade from
the package list.  Chong, Stefan, what do you think?

PH> I agree that overwriting should probably be the default for
PH> package-install-from-buffer especially; confirmation is unnecessary.

Yes, that was the specific use case I had in mind.  But maybe there
should be a message with sit-for 2 seconds so the user can tell
something tragic is about to happen.

Ted