Re: package and testing rant (was Re: package.el, auto-installation, and auto-removal)

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Nic Ferrier <nferrier@ferrier.me.uk>
> Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 11:41:16 +0000
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > Note that there is a fair bit a pressure to *add* rather than remove
> > magic steps (the first candidate in the list is to build the *.info
> > files from the *.texi files).
> 
> I agree. If the build was clearly separated this pressure would move
> away into the build tools.
> [...]
> Why do we want to move things into elpa.git? because we can fix bugs and
> add features quicker.

Please let's not forget that most users of ELPA are not developers,
they are users.  For a user, it's an annoyance when fetching a package
requires to "build" it, especially if that "build" stage requires
extra tools (beyond Emacs itself) and other dependencies, let alone
dealing with possible error messages, failure to build, etc.

Sacrificing user convenience of installing a package to make our lives
as developers easier sounds backwards to me.  So, from my POV, the
ideal should be "no build stage", and the only files to be generated
during the installation should be those that Emacs can do itself, as
part of the fetching and installation.