Re: ediff in RCS

[Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com>]

>>>>> "Andreas" == Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@online.de> writes:

Andreas> What about to have a joined repository for
Andreas> third-party-stuff in a VC-system. Maybe Git, SVN,
Andreas> whatever. Together with a joined discussion of bugs as
Andreas> it takes place with the core-files?

Andreas> This pertains too for repositories as emacs-lisp-list,
Andreas> Tom Tromeys ELPA and probably other collections I
Andreas> ignore.

FWIW I wasn't planning to set up any sort of version control system
for ELPA.  I do want to move it to a hosting service like savannah
eventually, so that other people can help maintain it.  I don't have a
firm plan for when this will happen, I suppose whenever ELPA seems
"popular enough".  Anyway, source control seems like a bit too much
process for this, at least right now.

Andreas> The problem seems in so far serious, as core-emacs can't
Andreas> grow eternal bigger and bigger. Rather I conceive a
Andreas> future, were independent packages are loaded as needed
Andreas> into a quick and stable core.

Andreas> Today already you may run into serious trouble, if your
Andreas> work depends on third-party-stuff, which for some
Andreas> reasons is no longer or not properly maintained (the
Andreas> latter is more or less inevitable with one-person-acts,
Andreas> as we all are making errors every day).

Andreas> At the other side the vast amount of third-party-stuff
Andreas> is very important and part of the strength
Andreas> of Emacs itself.

FWIW I don't mind having a maximal Emacs including everything -- I
rather like it, actually.  But at the same time Emacs has a very long
and irregular release cycle, and some sub-packages may benefit from
decoupling a bit.

As for maintaining dependencies -- ELPA can only help with the
mechanics of this.  If a package becomes unmaintained, or forks into
incompatible versions, that is not really something ELPA is intended
to solve.  There are other ways to solve this though: get code into
Emacs, or have a way to hand off maintainership from one person to the
next to ensure package integrity.

Tom