From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: MELPA version numbers Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 13:50:48 -0400 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1375379467 26080 80.91.229.3 (1 Aug 2013 17:51:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2013 17:51:07 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Aug 01 19:51:08 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1V4x1m-0004xW-NY for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 01 Aug 2013 19:51:06 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51885 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V4x1m-0000q7-DG for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 01 Aug 2013 13:51:06 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38245) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V4x1c-0000lt-LP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 Aug 2013 13:51:02 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V4x1W-0001Kd-47 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 Aug 2013 13:50:56 -0400 Original-Received: from ironport2-out.teksavvy.com ([206.248.154.182]:17792) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V4x1V-0001KV-Ss for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 Aug 2013 13:50:49 -0400 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AsoGABK/CFG4rw3m/2dsb2JhbABEtyKHbBdzgntyJhgNiEigC6EijQ9SgykDlymNUYFegxOBUw X-IPAS-Result: AsoGABK/CFG4rw3m/2dsb2JhbABEtyKHbBdzgntyJhgNiEigC6EijQ9SgykDlymNUYFegxOBUw X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.84,565,1355115600"; d="scan'208";a="20359676" Original-Received: from 184-175-13-230.dsl.teksavvy.com (HELO pastel.home) ([184.175.13.230]) by ironport2-out.teksavvy.com with ESMTP/TLS/ADH-AES256-SHA; 01 Aug 2013 13:50:42 -0400 Original-Received: by pastel.home (Postfix, from userid 20848) id 615F662F7F; Thu, 1 Aug 2013 13:50:48 -0400 (EDT) User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 206.248.154.182 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:162328 Archived-At: [ As is sadly becoming the norm nowadays, it's difficult to find a contact email address at http://melpa.milkbox.net/, so I send this here instead, hoping someone here will know where to resend it for me. ] A few times now I've heard people suffer from problems due to MELPA's use of incomparable version numbers: MELPA builds packages straight from a DVCS branch tip, so you get the "bleeding edge" and their build script ignores the package's own version number and instead just slaps a version number based on the current time, such as 20100105.123. This system makes sense, but if the package is also available (in it's "latest released version") via GNU ELPA or Marmalade, we have a problem because the two version numbers can't be compared correctly, and package.el doesn't even know it, so it just always picks MELPA's version (since 20100105.123 is "clearly" much more recent than say 2.3). This mess works surprisingly well in practice, since MELPA's versions are often at least as recent as the one on GNU ELPA or Maramalde (by virtue of being the bleeding edge from the DVCS). But if you ever stop using MELPA, all your MELPA-installed packages will stay non-updated for the foreseeable future since it'll take a while for foo.el to go from version 2.3 to version 20100106.0. And if for some reason the MELPA recipe points to an old DVCS unmaintained branch, you're similarly out of luck. One way out of this is to change the MELPA version numbers so that instead of ignoring the package's "2.3" and replacing it with "20100105.123", it should replace it with "2.3.20100105.123". WDYT? Stefan