bug#24197: Removing lisp/play from standard Emacs package

bug#24197: Removing lisp/play from standard Emacs package

[Otso Rajala]

Emacs is primarily used as a text editor. Toys shipped in lisp/play directory
are fun, no question about that. Do they belong into core disribution of Emacs
is another question.

Problems:
1) They increase package size.
2) Their existence clutters M-x <tab> autocomplete lists: example M-x bu <tab>
has all things buffer, but also shows bubbles and butterfly, hardly useful
during editing process.
3) Tools > Games is a bit confusing: games are not tools by definition.
4) Help > Psychotherapist is toy in documentation menu.

Solution:
1) Make these toys in lisp/play optionally available from
elpa.gnu.org/packages, but do not ship them by default within
Emacs.

Advantage of solution:
1) All problems go away
2) Simple lisp game sources now easily accessible right from common browser
for fun & inspiration without having to download 56M tar.gz editor with them.
3) Fair towards other toys, considering sokoban and wpuzzle are there but don't
ship by default.

- Otso

bug#24197: Removing lisp/play from standard Emacs package

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Otso Rajala <ojrajala@gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:43:13 +0300
> 
> Solution:
> 1) Make these toys in lisp/play optionally available from
> elpa.gnu.org/packages, but do not ship them by default within
> Emacs.
> 
> Advantage of solution:
> 1) All problems go away
> 2) Simple lisp game sources now easily accessible right from common browser
> for fun & inspiration without having to download 56M tar.gz editor with them.
> 3) Fair towards other toys, considering sokoban and wpuzzle are there but don't
> ship by default.

Disadvantage: you lose me as Emacs developer, because Emacs without
Tetris and Psychotherapist is not worth its bits for me.

bug#24197: Removing lisp/play from standard Emacs package

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2016-08-10, at 15:43, Otso Rajala <ojrajala@gmail.com> wrote:

> Emacs is primarily used as a text editor. Toys shipped in lisp/play directory
> are fun, no question about that. Do they belong into core disribution of Emacs
> is another question.
>
> Problems:
> 1) They increase package size.
> 2) Their existence clutters M-x <tab> autocomplete lists: example M-x bu <tab>
> has all things buffer, but also shows bubbles and butterfly, hardly useful
> during editing process.

How am I supposed to do any serious coding without M-x butterfly???

> 3) Tools > Games is a bit confusing: games are not tools by definition.

Games are tools for solving problems with the developer's mood.

> 4) Help > Psychotherapist is toy in documentation menu.

That is clearly a mistake - psychotherapy is Serious Business.

> Advantage of solution:
> 1) All problems go away

This can also be accomplished with M-x doctor.  No need to tamper with
Emacs distro.

> 2) Simple lisp game sources now easily accessible right from common browser
> for fun & inspiration without having to download 56M tar.gz editor with them.

But in order to have a browser (eww), I have to download the editor anyway.

> 3) Fair towards other toys, considering sokoban and wpuzzle are there but don't
> ship by default.

Ah, I've got you here!  How much did the authors of sokoban and wpuzzle
pay you? ;-)

> - Otso

SNCR,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

bug#24197: Removing lisp/play from standard Emacs package

[Clément Pit--Claudel]

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On 2016-08-10 09:43, Otso Rajala wrote:
> 3) Fair towards other toys, considering sokoban and wpuzzle are there but don't
> ship by default.

I agree. Let's ship these too by default. Are they in ELPA?

:)


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bug#24197: Removing lisp/play from standard Emacs package

[Ivan Shmakov]

>>>>> Otso Rajala <ojrajala@gmail.com> writes:

 > Emacs is primarily used as a text editor.  Toys shipped in lisp/play
 > directory are fun, no question about that.  Do they belong into core
 > disribution of Emacs is another question.

 > Problems: 1) They increase package size.

	For less than 1 MiB (uncompressed.)  Compare to, say, lisp/org
	and lisp/cedet (which together take about 10% of lisp/) – and
	those aren’t used by every Emacs user out there, either.

 > 2) Their existence clutters M-x <tab> autocomplete lists: example M-x
 > bu <tab> has all things buffer, but also shows bubbles and butterfly,
 > hardly useful during editing process.

	Indeed.  But there’s a simple workaround:

(fset 'butterfly nil)
(fset 'bubbles   nil)

	It’s also possible to exclude unwanted lisp/ subdirectories from
	load-path; for example:

(require 'cl)                   ; Emacs 24.5
(setq load-path
      (apply 'list
             "~/elisp" "~/elisp/hacks"
             ;; Exclude directories holding unwanted packages:
             (let ((blacklist "/\\(calc\\|cedet\\|erc\\|mh-e\\|org\\)$"))
               (remove-if (lambda (dir) (string-match-p blacklist dir))
                          load-path))))

	However, while this prevents accidental (auto)loading of the
	packages of no interest to the specific user, this does /not/ by
	itself remove the respective autoloads themselves.  The latter
	could be accomplished with the following (though this seems a
	tad expensive):

(mapatoms
 (lambda (sym)
   (let* ((fn   (symbol-function sym))
          (lib  (and (autoloadp fn) (cadr fn))))
     (when lib
       (condition-case v
           (find-library-name lib)
         (error
          (fset sym nil)))))))

[…]

 > Advantage of solution: 1) All problems go away

	Old ones go.  New ones come.

[…]

-- 
FSF associate member #7257  np. Across the Stars — Pražský Filmový Orchestr

bug#24197: Removing lisp/play from standard Emacs package

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

I suggest renaming the game commands to start with `play-'.
That will avoid interference with completion.
Aside from that, it is just a matter of adding a tiny amount
to the size of the distro, and that's not enough reason to change anything.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.