Re: Yum-like emacs package manager?

[Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com>]

torys.anderson@gmail.com (Tory S. Anderson) writes:

> Recently I've read various articles complaining about the emacs
> package manager (packages.el, `list-packages') given the explosion in
> user contributions to places like MELPA. Sure enough, especially with
> emacs traditional async incapabilities, loading the package list and
> searching through it is very cumbersome. 
>
> It seems like a natural solution would be something like apt-get, yum
> , and YaST, or maybe even cpan or ctan. Clearly much of what those
> managers do is unnecessary; we aren't dealing with a full OS, as much
> as we sometimes pretend we are. But in particular they perform search
> and filtering in powerful and relatively fast ways that would be
> wonderful to have in emacs.
>
> Does anyone know if there's something along these lines in
> development right now? 

I don't know if it is.  I've read some threads on emacs-devel about
speed problems in package.el.

Personally, I think it would be nice to use the already-existing
find-packages interface for the ELPAs too.  That interface has
categories.  It would be much faster because it would only require the
data for one category at a time.  That fact that M-x list-packages lists
everything is an inconvience in most cases.

BR,
Robert Thorpe