From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tom Tromey Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: ELPA and EmacsWiki Updates Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:57:36 -0600 Message-ID: References: <1188765510.729484.116910@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com> <86myw4paaa.fsf@rakim.cfhp.org> Reply-To: tromey@redhat.com NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1188850729 16820 80.91.229.12 (3 Sep 2007 20:18:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 20:18:49 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 03 22:18:47 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1ISINb-000627-5Q for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 22:18:39 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1ISINZ-0000gv-Uj for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:18:37 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1ISINL-0000f3-E4 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:18:23 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1ISINJ-0000cp-U6 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:18:23 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1ISINJ-0000ck-Mq for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:18:21 -0400 Original-Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.229.2] helo=ciao.gmane.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1ISINI-0002cA-U2 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:18:21 -0400 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1ISIND-0001IM-Fk for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 22:18:15 +0200 Original-Received: from 207.189.193.185 ([207.189.193.185]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 22:18:15 +0200 Original-Received: from tromey by 207.189.193.185 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 22:18:15 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 34 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.189.193.185 X-Attribution: Tom User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/23.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:kh4+1j2nU8fs7WCYMpazHaxP3Mg= X-Detected-Kernel: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:47164 Archived-At: >>>>> "Ted" == Edward O'Connor writes: >> Smaller (single file) packages tend to require some comment fixes >> first[...] Ted> What sort of fixes? Could ELPA be enhanced to require fewer changes, or Ted> no changes at all, for the common case? Usually it is just header comments. In particular package.el needs 2 things: * The header and trailer comments have to be correct according to the Emacs commenting guidelines. The header comment holds the package's name and also a comment describing the package; also the header and trailer are used by package-upload-file to find the boundaries of the file. * package.el needs a "Version:" header comment whose value is a "dotted numeric" version number. package.el uses this to handle upgrading packages, only activating a single version, etc. (There are other header comments that package.el can use, but this is the only required one.) I suppose we could dispense with these somehow, at the cost of reduced functionality. It does make it simpler for uploading if a file has these -- I don't have to enter anything by hand. And versioning, I think, is good for users. I also like to make sure that a file has proper ;;;###autoload comments. I think it is important that packages come ready for action -- a big part of the goal of ELPA is to make it simple for users to install and use Emacs packages. Tom