Re: Preferred approach to inclusion of data in ELPA package

[Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>]

Hugo Thunnissen <devel@hugot.nl> writes:

> On 8/19/23 17:51, Philip Kaludercic wrote:
>> Hugo Thunnissen <devel@hugot.nl> writes:
>>
>>> On 8/17/23 23:14, Philip Kaludercic wrote:
>>>> Another idea is to have a Makefile generate the file, like the one you
>>>> describe in option 2., that is generate whenever the package is built
>>>> and bundled into a tarball for distribution.  That way you don't have to
>>>> store a binary blob in your repository, and you can avoid burdening the
>>>> user with additional computations at either compile or runtime.
>>>>
>>>> Does the generation require any special functionality/tools/code to be
>>>> provided on the device the index is generated on?
>>> The php function/class stubs are generated with a php script, but I'm
>>> checking the resulting stubs file into git. The index itself can be
>>> built with just my package based on the stubs file.
>> I saw that, and the commit did not look that nice, but I cannot say that
>> I have looked into the issue in sufficient detail to say with certainty
>> or not that there is no better solution.
>>
> There are alternatives or improvements to this approach, which I
> mentioned in my response to sbaug
> (https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2023-08/msg00748.html)
> . I don't think I'll be able to get around having to distribute-, or
> having the user download/generate some kind of index though.

If PHP were available in the ELPA build environment, do you think that
would change anything?

>>> Also: If the former is the case, is the reduction in load time that
>>> this brings even significant enough to be worth the bother or should I
>>> just hold off on this while I look for a more efficient solution?
>> I'd say it would be worth it, if the resulting package would be smaller
>> and would load quicker.  After all, the performance on your laptop might
>> not be that significant of a difference, while for someone else with an
>> older or slower device, a 30%-speedup is pretty significant.
>
> You're right, on less performant systems it could make a more
> significant difference. And good news, after a few improvements the
> load time is now down to ~150ms on my laptop. I also chose to load the
> data when the mode is first initialized, so simply loading my package
> won't cause the index to be loaded with it. The dumping of the index
> is done automatically when it is not present, so it would technically
> be fine to just distribute the PHP stubs with the package instead of
> the .eld index file. This would just make the user wait a little
> longer the first time they use the mode.

Would it be possible to load the information when it is required
(e.g. necessary for completion)?