Re: package.el, auto-installation, and auto-removal

[joakim@verona.se]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> On Fri, 07 Nov 2014 08:45:51 -0500 Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote: 
>
> SM> `package.el' is great to install packages more easily, but it falls short
> SM> when you want to keep the same set of installed packages on various
> SM> machines, or when it's time to remove package you don't need because it
> SM> doesn't distinguish between the packages you want and those required
> SM> by those packages.
>
> SM> So I'm looking for some kind soul who could extend package.el so as to
> SM> keep track of the packages that the user installed explicitly.
> SM> This should likely be kept in a custom variable.
>
> SM> Then we could add a command to install all the packages listed in
> SM> that variable.  And we could also write a function that deletes all
> SM> "orphan" packages.
>
> (CC to Robert Dallas Gray, Pallet's author)
>
> Pallet does this: https://github.com/rdallasgray/pallet
>
> I am not crazy about Cask because it requires Python, but the simplicity
> of Pallet itself is appealing.  It uses advice and can be easily
> improved to integrate better with package.el with a few hooks.
>
> Pallet is GPL-ed and I don't know if the author would be interested in
> assigning the copyright to Emacs and modifying Pallet to support a
> non-Cask package maintenance backend. If that was possible, the problem
> would be reduced to writing that backend and the package.el hooks.
> Otherwise I think at least looking at pallet.el is worthwhile.

Also there is "el-get". It has some kind of funky license though.

>
> Ted
>
>

-- 
Joakim Verona