On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 1:19 PM, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
wrote:

> > But there is something missing in Emacs presently that would make this a
> > much more attractive option to package developers who want the broadest
> > base of users.  There needs to be a simple, single function call to
> require
> > a package which would automatically download, build, install and activate
> > it (a flag could control whether or not this actually happened
> > automatically or if the user were prompted to confirm, etc).
>
> Doesn't package-install do that?
>

​Mostly.  I don't think it handles updates.  Maybe another function
package-require could handle this need (essentially requiring remote
libraries rather than just local ones).


> Of course, I smell some connection to the fact that Emacs developers
> (including myself) have been opposed to making Emacs open up network
> connections (e.g. at startup) without explicit request from the user.
>

​There should be an enable- flag with a default of nil to allow for this.

> The main issue I see right now is that packages are installed on a
> per-user
> > basis rather than a per-Emacs site basis, so you would get a lot more
> code
> > instance duplication and version management issues than you would have
> with
> > a package integrated into Emacs core.
>
> ELPA packages can be installed site-wide just fine.  There's no obvious
> direct support to do that, admittedly, but it's just a small matter of
> designing the UI (and default layout) and coding it.  I had such support
> in install.el and it's really not hard to add.  And at least under
> Debian you can install various ELPA packages site-wide via Debian's
> package manager.
>

​This would be good.
​
Bob