Best practices for writing an Emacs package

Best practices for writing an Emacs package

[Akib Azmain Turja]

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There are certainly some best practices for doing something.  But what
are the best practices for writing and maintaining an Emacs package?

Here are what I already know,

For programming in general,

* Write readable code, so that anyone else can also understand it.
* Write enough comments to explain what's going on.
* Write as many automated tests as possible.
* Use a version control system.
* Maintain a ChangeLog.
* Never publish code with syntax errors.
* Never throw out your computer through a window due to buggy code.

For Emacs packages,

* Write the summary line properly.
* Write package headers properly.
* Use lexical binding.
* Write good commentary.
* Define user options with `defcustom' instead of `defvar'.
* Write docstrings.
* Follow Emacs Lisp coding conventions.
* Never corrupt user data.
* Never left Emacs in a unusable state.
* Never uninstall Emacs due to frustration.

And what else?

-- 
Akib Azmain Turja

Find me on Mastodon at @akib@hostux.social, and on Codeberg (user
"akib").

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Re: Best practices for writing an Emacs package

[Theodor Thornhill]

Akib Azmain Turja <akib@disroot.org> writes:

> There are certainly some best practices for doing something.  But what
> are the best practices for writing and maintaining an Emacs package?

I haven't read it, but there's a repo by a prolific package dev
describing many such things here

https://github.com/alphapapa/emacs-package-dev-handbook

Theo

Re: Best practices for writing an Emacs package

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > * Never throw out your computer through a window due to buggy code.

However, do throw Windows out of the computer due to its unjust manner
of distribution.  Unjust code is worse than buggy code.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Best practices for writing an Emacs package

[Akib Azmain Turja]

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Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > * Never throw out your computer through a window due to buggy code.
>
> However, do throw Windows out of the computer due to its unjust manner
> of distribution.  Unjust code is worse than buggy code.

I tried to throw out Losedows, but my stupid BIOS searches for Windows
to boot.  However I don't start Losedows, fortunately the BIOS has an
option to choose a GNU GRUB's EFI file.  But I need to do that every
time I boot it, a little bit annoying.

-- 
Akib Azmain Turja

Find me on Mastodon at @akib@hostux.social, and on Codeberg (user
"akib").

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