Re: Elpa packages and macro dependencies.

[bruce.connor.am@gmail.com]

Achim Gratz:
> That doesn't work when defcustoms, autoloads and defvars change in the
> new version.

It would be good to fix autoloads indeed, but you can't force-reload
defcustoms, or you'll be erasing user customizations.
You could reload them only if its value is still the standard value,
but then users who has customized it would still run into the same
problem.

That said, IIUC, defcustoms and defvars aren't really a huge problem.
They're only problematic if the package author changes something in a
backwards-incompatible way (thus making an old defcustom not work with
new code). And even then, things should resume normality after a restart.


Or am I missing something?


The problem with macros is that they break installation of packages,
and it happens even if all package authors respect backwards
compatibility.