From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan =?utf-8?Q?Reich=C3=B6r?= Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Future role of ELPA Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 19:51:38 +0100 Message-ID: <87h9h8bi9x.fsf@xsteve.at> References: <87a8n20y7x.fsf@gmx.de> <87k2m60y08.fsf@mbork.pl> <871t8d26zp.fsf@gmx.de> <8760xpce7i.fsf@xsteve.at> <87vb5paxlp.fsf_-_@xsteve.at> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1455648728 14129 80.91.229.3 (16 Feb 2016 18:52:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 18:52:08 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Feb 16 19:51:59 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aVkj6-0008Np-Pm for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 16 Feb 2016 19:51:56 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:49669 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aVkj6-0002jL-6C for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 16 Feb 2016 13:51:56 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:55440) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aVkj1-0002iX-J9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 16 Feb 2016 13:51:52 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aVkiy-0006q3-9t for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 16 Feb 2016 13:51:51 -0500 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:41585) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aVkiy-0006pz-2Z for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 16 Feb 2016 13:51:48 -0500 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aVkiv-0008Af-Ow for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 16 Feb 2016 19:51:45 +0100 Original-Received: from 188-22-237-200.adsl.highway.telekom.at ([188.22.237.200]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 2016 19:51:45 +0100 Original-Received: from stefan by 188-22-237-200.adsl.highway.telekom.at with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 2016 19:51:45 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 57 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 188-22-237-200.adsl.highway.telekom.at User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:XJGWcD81ELKoW6Gtl9gInlholYM= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:200048 Archived-At: John Wiegley writes: >>>>>> Stefan Reichör writes: > >> My main concern with GNU ELPA is that I have to install a lot of extra >> packages manually using the package manager. When they are built-in they are >> just there. > > Hi Stefan, > > Have no fear: I never use package.el myself, since I also prefer to curate > hand-installed packages. > > So what does moving to ELPA mean? > > There would be a large set of ELPA packages (maybe all of them to start) that > will appear in the tarball when you download and install Emacs. This means -- > I think -- that they should populate the site-wide site-lisp directory, and > appear to users as if they had come "with Emacs"; that is, either autoloading > or a manual `require' statement to make the functionality available. > > There are a few advantages to this: > > 1. After installation of Emacs, package.el can be used to upgrade select > packages independent of our release cycle. > > 2. Developers can get packages into the Emacs distribution without having to > justification inclusion in core. > > 3. Code "in development" is free to appear in ELPA, whereas we tend to frown > on APIs that will change often in Emacs itself. > > The bottom line is that, as a user, you shouldn't notice much difference after > installation, but you'll gain the benefit of optionally performing frequent > updates of ELPA packages. As an Emacs developer, the advantage is that it > simplifies the Emacs Git repository, and makes it easier for external authors > to focus on maintaining their packages within ELPA. I see. A simpler way to upgrade selected packages is good thing. Some things that should be considered for the package system: 1. Not only emacs provides a package manager. Linux distributions also provide some packages. Not sure if this is a good idea. The same situation is e.g. for python. You can use pip to install packages. And there are python packages provided by distributions. Some people prefer OS packages, some prefer the native package manager. Not sure what to do about this situation. 2. The packages should not be too fine grained. It is not very useful to split e.g. tramp in 20 sub-packages for example. I don't want to be overwhelmed by 100s or 1000s of packages. Perhaps we could have some kind of installation counter to find useful packages. Or even some kind of voting system. Stefan.