From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk (Phillip Lord) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: package and testing rant (was Re: package.el, auto-installation, and auto-removal) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 13:30:46 +0000 Message-ID: <87y4rhuant.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> References: <87a943umku.fsf@lifelogs.com> <87ppcvm7fj.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <87vbmndk46.fsf@lifelogs.com> <87wq72ls2h.fsf@ferrier.me.uk> <87k332lnn3.fsf_-_@ferrier.me.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1415712681 31587 80.91.229.3 (11 Nov 2014 13:31:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 13:31:21 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Stefan Monnier , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Nic Ferrier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Nov 11 14:31:14 2014 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 1XoBXK-0001cI-6K for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2014 14:31:10 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:48819 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XoBXJ-00050Q-Qp for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2014 08:31:09 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:43622) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XoBX2-000502-ML for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2014 08:30:57 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XoBWy-0005xY-7W for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2014 08:30:52 -0500 Original-Received: from cheviot22.ncl.ac.uk ([128.240.234.22]:48463) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XoBWy-0005xS-1i for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Nov 2014 08:30:48 -0500 Original-Received: from smtpauth-vm.ncl.ac.uk ([10.8.233.129] helo=smtpauth.ncl.ac.uk) by cheviot22.ncl.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1XoBWx-0001eK-DC; Tue, 11 Nov 2014 13:30:47 +0000 Original-Received: from jangai.ncl.ac.uk ([10.66.67.223] helo=localhost) by smtpauth.ncl.ac.uk with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1XoBWw-0002ct-VJ; Tue, 11 Nov 2014 13:30:47 +0000 In-Reply-To: <87k332lnn3.fsf_-_@ferrier.me.uk> (Nic Ferrier's message of "Mon, 10 Nov 2014 22:02:56 +0000") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 128.240.234.22 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:176748 Archived-At: Nic Ferrier writes: > Stefan Monnier writes: > >>> I am still cross about the whole state of packaging. It's wrong. But no >>> one seems to be listening to me. >> >> I'm not sure if you're referring to the way GNU ELPA works or about >> package.el. About GNU ELPA, it's not that I don't listen, but that >> I disagree. The point of GNU ELPA to not to just distribute other >> people's packages. > > The multi-packages users load in their emacs are tars. But the packages > that are checked in to ELPA are directories of files. > > So package authors are not checking in what gets delivered to the > user. So there is a magic build step somewhere. It is certainly the case that I most "test" my packages by using them. And I do not install my own packages through ELPA but live from their VC'd repository. So, there is a worry here. This is even true during my continuous integration tests (the dependencies are loaded from an ELPA repo, but nothing else). Having said that, I generally use an automatic tool to move from the source repository format to the package format; or, in the case of MELPA, someone else does it for me. Once this is set up, I am struggling to think of bugs that have come at package time. > This discourages testing of packages before they are distributed. > > And I am really starting to think we need better testing. 24.4 looked > like a slog to release and it still has many bugs. > > And yes, I promise to help more. But that's not really the issue. This > isn't scaling. We need to have better QA tools. And packages having > hidden builds is going the other way. Not going to argue here. Slowing moving my elisp to a testable state has made me happier. Phil