bug#62720: 29.0.60; Not easy at all to upgrade :core packages like Eglot

["João Távora" <joaotavora@gmail.com>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: João Távora <joaotavora@gmail.com>
>> Cc: eliz@gnu.org, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>,
>>   62720@debbugs.gnu.org, Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
>> Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 12:02:48 +0100
>> 
>> So the final patch that I'm proposing for emacs 29 is attached.  M-x
>> package-update-all fixes those cases and correctly finds and updates 4
>> packages to their newest released versions, exactly as it should.
>> 
>>    (eglot eldoc jsonrpc verilog-mode)
>> 
>> Eli, what do you think?
>
> I'd prefer it to go to master, not to emacs-29.  The problem is not
> grave enough and OTOH the workaround is simple enough.  So changing
> package.el in such non-trivial ways is not something I'd like to risk
> now.

Please reconsider.  If we do this, than Emacs 29 users will be almost
locked out of upgrading Eglot and a lot of other built-in packages.
I'll have to teach people that workaround in the manual, where such
workarounds don't really belong.

Note that Eglot moved from ELPA to core, but it had (and has) many users
on Emacs 26, 27 and 28.  Eglot is getting regular new features in
master, the bundled Emacs 29 version is now already pretty "old".  When
migrating to Emacs 29, these users will expect to keep being able to
update to the latest version, and will likely be baffled that it doesn't
work as smoothly as it used to.

M-x package-update and M-x package-update-all are new in Emacs 29.
They're buggy, so why ship them buggy?  The change I'm proposing it not
really "non-trivial".  I can walk you or anybody through the code, or
write tests if that would improve the outlook.

>> Who is package.el's main maintainer?  Everyone?
>> Lars added M-x package-update (for Emacs 29) so I'm pinging him as well.
>
> I think it's mostly Philip and Stefan.

Let's hear from them, to see if there's some kind of subtlety I might
have missed.

João