From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: What exactly does "installing a package" mean? Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 01:11:20 +0100 Message-ID: <87ziz5jhlj.fsf@debian.uxu> References: <87bnbll6b9.fsf@mbork.pl> <87d1w15nax.fsf@attichacker.com> <87611tkxij.fsf@mbork.pl> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1445904143 32398 80.91.229.3 (27 Oct 2015 00:02:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 00:02:23 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Oct 27 01:02:13 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@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 1ZqriN-00084W-OA for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 27 Oct 2015 01:02:11 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55966 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZqriM-00039u-Qq for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 26 Oct 2015 20:02:10 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:54187) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZqriC-00039p-P1 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 26 Oct 2015 20:02:01 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZqriA-0000AV-1I for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 26 Oct 2015 20:02:00 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:41529) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zqri9-0000AI-Qb for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 26 Oct 2015 20:01:57 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Zqri8-0007os-5R for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 27 Oct 2015 01:01:56 +0100 Original-Received: from nl106-137-244.student.uu.se ([130.243.137.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 27 Oct 2015 01:01:56 +0100 Original-Received: from embe8573 by nl106-137-244.student.uu.se with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 27 Oct 2015 01:01:56 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Mail-Followup-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-Lines: 64 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: nl106-137-244.student.uu.se Mail-Copies-To: never User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:JKTt/VVDDTNUlx6OxMpoVlBYaL8= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:107826 Archived-At: Marcin Borkowski writes: > On 2015-10-26, at 22:31, Kevin W. van Rooijen > wrote: OT: Did you get that as a private mail? I don't see it in the gmane.emacs.help threads... > Thanks, but you misunderstood me. What I was asking > about was a particular /implementation detail/ of > Emacs' package manager. > > I've already added some packages - in fact, I'm > afraid too many of them, from too many repositories > - and I want to clean the mess. However, that mess > is currently working, and if something goes wrong > with the cleaning, I want to be able to quickly > recover. Doing manual manipulations in > `package-user-dir' seems the easiest way. As always: this "clean" and dirty and "mess" and minimal and bloated etc. etc. is based on a misconception that is derived from the physical world. In the physical world, things that are sometimes useful, but not often enough, or perhaps not right now, such things may get in the way, and you might consider putting other stuff there, instead. OTOH, in a computer system, it doesn't work like that at all. If the computer is well-organized, there is no mess in having one zillion packages or binaries or shell functions or scripts, or all of that at the same time, as long as they all 1) work, and 2) serve a specific purpose They don't get in the way; they don't interfere with each other; and, you never know when you might need them. So *keep* the "mess"! That said, with Emacs you basically need a bunch of .el files which you can just as well load manually. They can be compiled if you wish. If you use a package manager then the whole point of having one of those is when you don't want to do stuff manually. To install stuff with the package manager, and then remove it manually or otherwise alter it manually, I can't see that leading to anything but inconsistency and confusion... But, to answer your question, no, there is nothing to it but files and directories, just like everything else on a Unix system. So alter it all exactly like you please. Only, especially since it works, I don't see any gain in doing so - on the contrary it'll be error-prone and time-consuming. Only if you enjoy it you should do it. -- underground experts united http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573