Re: Are there an elisp package manager like apt-get or cpan?

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

Tassilo Horn <heimdall@uni-koblenz.de> writes:

> Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:
>
> Hi Tim,
>
>> I think you hit th enail on the head - the real problem is that we
>> don't have a central, maintained and up-to-date repository of emacs
>> packages. There have been anumber of emacs lisp archives in the past,
>> but they all seem to last only as long as the person who initiated the
>> effort is prepared to maintain things. Once they move on to something
>> else, it all just dies.
>
> If there was such an repository and an asdf-install like tool for elisp
> I'm sure developers would update their packages themselves.
>
>> It would be nice if some body like GNU would setup and maintain a
>> single comprehensive elisp archive.
>
> I think a simple packages.el on emacswiki.org would suffice in the
> beginning. Then developers could update their packages themselves
> without having to register somewhere.
>

Yes, an asdf like package installer would be good for emacs. It would
be possible then to have an on-line list of asdf supported emacs
packages on the emacs wiki and then we could just do asdf::install. 

Of course, there are the security issues with both a wiki and with any
program that will seek out a package and install it for you. PGP keys
and checksums would address some of the later issues - don't know
about making sure the list is safe/reliable. A wiki is probably a bad
choice, but we would need something that enables maintainers to easily
update things. 

then again, maybe we don't need something as powerful as asdf and an
existing system, such as darcs, could do the job.

Tim


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au