Re: Include leaf in Emacs distribution

[Ergus via "Emacs development discussions." <emacs-devel@gnu.org>]

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I have to say that I have use-packages since ever with no issues; and just very recently I tried leaf and it has indeed a cleaner/simpler implementation some improve in startup time and more coherent syntax. Also extensibility/api looks as well a bit more coherent.

BUT we must find a better alternative than adding two overlapping packages to vanilla. It doubles the code with half benefit.

use-package is indeed the sort of standard but IMO a bit too much code. Before coming to vanilla either leaf or use-package will need some modifications, so maybe we should somehow require use-packages to include the leaf improves (or viceversa) before coming to vanilla. If it breaks backward compatibility with the original packages it is not a problem as they are not in vanilla yet and use-package is not even in elpa... We must priorize functionality and future maintainability over backward compatibility of external code; in this case we can assert it before including any alternative because once inside the backward compatibility requirement will be stronger.



On October 12, 2020 4:10:45 AM GMT+02:00, Naoya Yamashita <conao3@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Okay, that is definitely added value.
>
>Thanks.
>
>> Because I'm using straight the actual expansion is more complicated,
>> but the require is there.
>
>? Yes, use-package is expand `require` Sexp, but leaf is not.
>
>```
>(let ((use-package-expand-minimally t))
>  (macroexpand-1
>   '(use-package flymake)))
>;;=> (require 'flymake nil nil)
>
>(let ((leaf-expand-minimally t))
>  (macroexpand-1
>   '(leaf flymake)))
>;;=> (prog1 'flymake)
>```
>
>> I was talking about use-package. I have a lot of requires in my
>> init.el, but I don't know if they are all necessary. Maybe they are
>> only needed for packages for which I had to supply :init
>> specifications, or maybe they are not needed at all.
>> 
>> As for startup time, it is 2s and I use emacsclient. I voluntarily
>> choose to load everything at start-up, those 2 seconds are a minor
>> annoyance maybe once a day, which is a lot preferrable to several
>> minor annoyances when I first open a tex, org or pdf file.
>> 
>> I have no doubt that leaf has a similar option as use-package to
>never
>> defer loading. :)
>
>leaf always trusts autoload and does not always require it, so
>require is only done for packages that explicitly require
>it. Therefore, require is only done for packages that explicitly
>specify a requirement.  This design was not possible in 2013 when
>use-package was created, but few current packages require an
>explicit request.
>
>> Interesting. For me :when is the most disappointing feature. My
>> typical use-case for conditionally loading a package is the
>> availability of some program on the system, or having or not sudo
>> rights. Because the :when keyword applies to loading the package, as
>> opposed to installing it, I cannot use it in this case.
>> 
>> So I have a couple (when my-bool (use-package ...)) in my init.
>
>Oh, then you can use leaf's :when keyword.  :when is set more
>priority from :ensure, so you can controll :ensure keyword using
>:when keyword.
>
>See this example.  leaf generate Sexp what you want.
>
>```
>(setq leaf-expand-minimally t)
>(setq use-package-expand-minimally t)
>
>(macroexpand-1
> '(use-package flyspell-correct
>    :when (executable-find "aspell")
>    :ensure t
>    :hook org-mode-hook))
>;;=> (progn
>;;     (use-package-ensure-elpa 'flyspell-correct '(t) 'nil)
>;;     (when (executable-find "aspell")
>;;       (unless (fboundp 'flyspell-correct)
>;;         (autoload #'flyspell-correct "flyspell-correct" nil t))
>;;       (add-hook 'org-mode-hook-hook #'flyspell-correct)))
>
>(macroexpand-1
> '(leaf flyspell-correct
>    :when (executable-find "aspell")
>    :ensure t
>    :hook org-mode-hook))
>;;=> (prog1 'flyspell-correct
>;;     (unless (fboundp 'flyspell-correct-mode)
>;;       (autoload #'flyspell-correct-mode "flyspell-correct" nil t))
>;;     (when (executable-find "aspell")
>;;       (leaf-handler-package flyspell-correct flyspell-correct nil)
>;;       (add-hook 'org-mode-hook #'flyspell-correct-mode)))
>```
>
>> It might be the best we have, but counting downloads does not count
>> individual users. Some users will bootstrap multiple instances of
>> emacs with use-package or leaf, each resulting in one download.
>
>It say `download` but download from same IP, count as 1, I
>remmember (but no source comment...)
>
>> Also some package managers, such as straight, can completely bypass
>> melpa (and elpa too? not sure).
>
>True.
>
>> And I wouldn't be too surprised if a significant part of leaf's 150k
>> were already included in the 1.1M of use-package.
>> 
>> It's only tangentially related, but maybe we could suggest that Melpa
>> report downloads per year, that might already give a better measure
>of
>> the number of current users.
>
>There are idea[1] but it is not implemented?
>
>[1]: https://github.com/melpa/melpa/issues/2416

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