From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Auto-installing packages? Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 09:40:57 -0400 Message-ID: References: <87a7okkw3v.fsf@russet.org.uk> <877ejks5su.fsf@russet.org.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1537191586 19529 195.159.176.226 (17 Sep 2018 13:39:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 13:39:46 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/27.0.50 (gnu/linux) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 17 15:39:42 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1g1tka-0004v4-V9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Sep 2018 15:39:41 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35648 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1g1tmg-0001ra-Hw for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Sep 2018 09:41:50 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:49878) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1g1tm2-0001Yp-Um for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Sep 2018 09:41:11 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1g1tlz-0007UF-PD for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Sep 2018 09:41:10 -0400 Original-Received: from [195.159.176.226] (port=60191 helo=blaine.gmane.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1g1tlz-0007Rn-Gg for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Sep 2018 09:41:07 -0400 Original-Received: from list by blaine.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1g1tjp-00042B-GA for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Sep 2018 15:38:53 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 62 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org Cancel-Lock: sha1:+6Bx/V4soGnTMgSabV32hvLZID8= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 195.159.176.226 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:229892 Archived-At: >>> I use `use-package' to "automatically" install packages for me. >> How does it work? >> Doesn't this silently install at startup the packages you specified? >> I really dislike the "silently" part (and am not too happy about doing >> all of it at startup either). > Yep. It runs "package-install". It's not silent, since you get all the By "silent" I meant that it does it without asking for permission/confirmation first. I understand that it's a small matter of programming, but from the UI-side I consider this unacceptable. > install messages. And, yes, doing it as part of startup is very slow > iff none of the packages are installed. Also, it breaks startup if a > package installation fails. > Still this only happens when you use Emacs on a new machine or in my > case, when I change Emacs version. Which all argues in favor of prompting. >> Another related issue is the "auto-upgrade" part. This one is worse >> because it seems to inevitably involve some kind of "polling" of >> a central server, which I find to be a serious privacy issue. > It doesn't autoupdate, although it's simple to make it do so, but > automating the "package-refresh, update-all" cycle. A privacy issue, > yes, maybe, although it's not massively different from running this > manually. I find a constant "call home" done automatically qualitatively very different from running it manually (e.g. you can make sure it's always done from your home, for example). But I wouldn't oppose an option to automatically check for updates in the background (I'd also be OK with an option to auto-download them, but I'd oppose auto-installing them updates without an explicit user interaction). >> Indeed, there's the problem of installing those auto-install-autoloads, > There is a practical issue with handling it *just like* autoloads. > At the moment, autoloads happens in the command-loop. Actually, it happens at a much lower-level within `funcall`. > So, from nearly anywhere. Oh, yes. > That's okay, because if an autoloaded package cannot be autoloaded, > then Emacs has some pretty major issues. > Installing a package over a network is a much more failable process. No doubt. Maybe rather than "prompt the user, install, and retry the call", we'll need to "abort the current command, then prompt, ...". > No, you misunderstand me. You don't need to pre-install this way. You > release "Emacs without ELPA", but include > "auto-install-autoloads". Emacs will get bigger this way over time. Ah, make the auto-installs into an upgradable package, yes that makes a lot of sense. Stefan