Updating idlwave in Emacs

Updating idlwave in Emacs

[Glenn Morris]

Hi,

I noticed that the version of idlwave distributed with Emacs seems to
lag quite a bit behind your version (looks like no updates from you were
installed since 2007... :( ). It would be great to sync up the Emacs
version with your version.

Is that something you are interested in helping with?
It looks like you already have write access to Emacs?

Re: Updating idlwave in Emacs

[Glenn Morris]

Hi - just a reminder about this.

Glenn Morris wrote:

> I noticed that the version of idlwave distributed with Emacs seems to
> lag quite a bit behind your version (looks like no updates from you were
> installed since 2007... :( ). It would be great to sync up the Emacs
> version with your version.
>
> Is that something you are interested in helping with?
> It looks like you already have write access to Emacs?

Re: Updating idlwave in Emacs

[JD Smith]

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for your note, and apologies for the delay.  IDLWAVE maintenance has fallen somewhat behind due to my many other commitments.  In fact sadly the version shipping with the current Emacs has a number of issues which make it less than useful for users of modern IDLs.  That said, there is still a largish core group of users.  I also have a few potential replacement maintainers interested, and have placed the repository on github.  I've reorganized, split out, and cleaned up the code structure, to hopefully make it easier for others to contribute.

What I see as the best long term solution is to remove IDLWAVE from Emacs core, and bundle it as a package, but I don't have any experience with packages (other than as a user).  I am also somewhat daunted by the need to backport changes from the Emacs core version of idlwave which have accumulated over the past 6 or so years.  

I'd really like to see IDLWAVE working well again for Emacs users.  Any advice or assistance you could provide on these issues would be appreciated.  

Best,

JDS

On Jul 15, 2014, at 11:47 AM, Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> wrote:

> 
> Hi - just a reminder about this.
> 
> Glenn Morris wrote:
> 
>> I noticed that the version of idlwave distributed with Emacs seems to
>> lag quite a bit behind your version (looks like no updates from you were
>> installed since 2007... :( ). It would be great to sync up the Emacs
>> version with your version.
>> 
>> Is that something you are interested in helping with?
>> It looks like you already have write access to Emacs?

Re: Updating idlwave in Emacs

[Glenn Morris]

Hi,

There's no particular rush to get this done, so no worries.
But it's great that we can at least get discussion started.

JD Smith wrote:

> What I see as the best long term solution is to remove IDLWAVE from
> Emacs core, and bundle it as a package, but I don't have any
> experience with packages (other than as a user).

I don't really have any experience with packages either.
I don't think it's too difficult though.
Hopefully other people on this list can advise as needed.

If you mean that you'd like it moved from "core" Emacs to elpa.gnu.org,
that's come up in the context of a few other things recently. There
isn't a mechanism in place for it yet. The minimum would probably be to
obsolete the version in Emacs, with a note that newer versions will live
in elpa. Whether or not preserving the VCS history is possible/worth it
is still a bit of an open question.

See recent discussion in thread
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2014-07/msg00068.html

> I am also somewhat daunted by the need to backport changes from the
> Emacs core version of idlwave which have accumulated over the past 6
> or so years.

I'm afraid I don't have any tips to make merging the two versions any
easier (take the diff from the last known merged version and try to
apply it...). Quickly scanning the last couple of years of changes to
idlwave.el in Emacs doesn't seem to show any complex changes (though
some of them might be pervasive) so perhaps it won't be quite so bad...

Although it's the more difficult job, maybe that's the place to start -
make the definitive, merged version, then figure out where it will live?

Re: Updating idlwave in Emacs

[Stefan Monnier]

>> I am also somewhat daunted by the need to backport changes from the
>> Emacs core version of idlwave which have accumulated over the past 6
>> or so years.

Right, the problem is not so much the changes as the accumulation.
The sooner the two forks are re-merged the better.

After that, the easier way to "sync" things up is to only have one
development branch.  Having one in Emacs and one on github is asking
for trouble.

You can use the Emacs code as the main place for development, by
the way (this is up to you, but I generally recommend it).

> Although it's the more difficult job, maybe that's the place to start -
> make the definitive, merged version, then figure out where it will live?

Yes, the more we wait, the harder it gets to sync them back.


        Stefan