From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tom Tromey Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: CVS is the `released version' Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 18:17:15 -0700 Message-ID: <17991.47259.210100.801472@localhost.localdomain> References: <2cd46e7f0705101124r72000f78xdf05d18ca815ca57@mail.gmail.com> Reply-To: Tom Tromey NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1179106414 11496 80.91.229.12 (14 May 2007 01:33:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 01:33:34 +0000 (UTC) Cc: joakim@verona.se, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon May 14 03:33:33 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HnPRH-0000Ga-CG for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 14 May 2007 03:33:27 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HnPYy-0000l3-FN for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 13 May 2007 21:41:24 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1HnPYv-0000ku-Ay for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 13 May 2007 21:41:21 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1HnPYu-0000kf-J6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 13 May 2007 21:41:21 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HnPYu-0000kc-Fn for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 13 May 2007 21:41:20 -0400 Original-Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1HnPRB-0000M9-HN; Sun, 13 May 2007 21:33:21 -0400 Original-Received: from int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (int-mx1.corp.redhat.com [172.16.52.254]) by mx1.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id l4E1XFqD018550; Sun, 13 May 2007 21:33:15 -0400 Original-Received: from pobox.corp.redhat.com (pobox.corp.redhat.com [10.11.255.20]) by int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id l4E1XELC018822; Sun, 13 May 2007 21:33:14 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost.localdomain.redhat.com (vpn-14-39.rdu.redhat.com [10.11.14.39]) by pobox.corp.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id l4E1XCRi003356; Sun, 13 May 2007 21:33:13 -0400 In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: VM 7.19-cannot_determine_precise_VM_version. under Emacs 22.0.95.1 X-Attribution: Tom X-detected-kernel: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:70992 Archived-At: >>>>> "RMS" == Richard Stallman writes: >> Tom Tromey posted a simple implementation of a package system to >> emacs.sources recently. It works fairly well, so the time is already >> invested. RMS> I wish that were true, but most of the work of installing a package RMS> system is making everything _use_ it. Actually this package manager was designed with the goal of making it very easy to support. If package.el were included in Emacs it would require listing some version information for packages included in Emacs, and invoking (package-initialize) during startup. So I think this could be supported without much difficulty in Emacs itself. >> Compared with systems like Eclipse, installing an emacs package >> consists of some fairly boring obviously automatable steps. (like >> hunting for the package, RMS> I don't see how any code installed in Emacs could save you the need RMS> for that. package.el is attached to a web site, ELPA, where package updates are uploaded. The idea here is twofold. First, many packages are released between Emacs releases; package.el makes it simple to update to these releases and use them. Second, not every useful Emacs Lisp package out there is going to be included in Emacs. We've seen over the years that having a separate repository is in fact very useful to Emacs users. Another thing package.el provides is simple installation. Packages are downloaded (including their dependencies, if any) and installed for you, autoloads are extracted, the package is byte-compiled, and when Emacs starts up,the packages are "activated" (meaning the autoloads are evalled). Users don't have to modify their .emacs for updates to load-path, the Info path, or a list of autoloads. There aren't many packages in ELPA yet. However my experience has been that packages consisting of a single .el file (the most common kind) are very easy to fix up for inclusion. That's because package.el can usually extract the information it needs for files following the already existing Emacs commenting guidelines. Currently ELPA is hosted on my web site but I plan to turn it into a project on savannah or the like. Tom