Re: [ELPA] New package: activities

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

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  > > I’m not sure I follow. Most of the time package authors don’t
  > > ssy anything until they want to publish the package, so how can
  > > the maintainers suggest to them to contribute to an existing
  > > package?
  > > 
  > > An alternative would be for potential package authors to post to
  > > emacs-devel, stating that they would like to see feature foo in
  > > package bar.  If it turns out that it is not feasible to
  > > implement the feature, then sure, a new package can be created.

  > Please don't forget the possibility that the author has already 
  > considered and rejected the idea to modify an existing library.  I 
  > reached this decision over 3 years ago, before I started working on 
  > burly.el, which has led me to finally develop activities.el.  Sometimes 
  > it is best to start with a fresh perspective, rather than trying to 
  > shoehorn ideas into an existing framework.

First, I have no opinions about what to do with activities.el in
particular.  It could potentially be useful for many users, but it
probably won't be useful for me on a Linux console.  It doesn't seem
to affect Emacs at a deeper level.  So I decided to leave its design
issues to others.  I'm writing only about this broader question.

I am glad that you first considered adding the feature to an existing
package.  Thinking about that was a wise thing to do.

You reached the conclusion that it was better to make a new, separate
package.  Maybe that is right.  (I don't know the details so I have no
opinion about it.)

Nonetheless, it would be good if everyone considering a new feature
were to ask for advice on emacs-devel about the best way to implement
it before starting to write it.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)