emacs packages and elpa

emacs packages and elpa

[Cayetano Santos]

Hello Guix,

  We distribute emacs packages from gnu/elpa by downloading .tar files
  from there: I’m thinking about emacs-ggtags.

  My first concern is, what emacs-ggtags 0.9.0 corresponds to exactly ?
  There is no 0.9.0 tag in upstream github reposotory, and, if I
  understand it correctly, elpa just mirrors it

    https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/elpa.git/log/?h=externals/ggtags

  So what exactly 0.9.0 is ? They bump on the 2018-07-26.  Does it refer
  to something more recent ? How to know ? This is for sure elpa
  related, ... but we are distributing packages based on their criteria.
  It would be great to understand how it goes (at this point, I cannot
  clone elpa, for some reason).

  My second concern is, how do we distribute some more up to date (think
  emacs-magit), if we use a .tar from elpa ? When developer decides not
  to / forgets to tag a new release, how do we proceed ? Do we use
  elpa.gnu.org/devel instead ? I cannot see any example of guix sources.

Best,

C.

Re: emacs packages and elpa

[Nicolas Goaziou via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution.]

Hello,

Cayetano Santos <csantosb@inventati.org> writes:

>   We distribute emacs packages from gnu/elpa by downloading .tar files
>   from there: I’m thinking about emacs-ggtags.
>
>   My first concern is, what emacs-ggtags 0.9.0 corresponds to exactly ?
>   There is no 0.9.0 tag in upstream github reposotory, and, if I
>   understand it correctly, elpa just mirrors it
>
>     https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/elpa.git/log/?h=externals/ggtags
>
>   So what exactly 0.9.0 is ? They bump on the 2018-07-26.  Does it refer
>   to something more recent ? How to know ? This is for sure elpa
>   related, ... but we are distributing packages based on their criteria.
>   It would be great to understand how it goes (at this point, I cannot
>   clone elpa, for some reason).

For Emacs packages, "Version" keyword in main file, here "ggtags.el", is
more important than tags because each time that keyword is updated,
a new release happens on ELPA. In a nutshell, "0.9.0" refers to the
commit that updated the keyword.

>   My second concern is, how do we distribute some more up to date (think
>   emacs-magit), if we use a .tar from elpa ? When developer decides not
>   to / forgets to tag a new release, how do we proceed ? Do we use
>   elpa.gnu.org/devel instead ? I cannot see any example of guix
>   sources.

As pointed out, upstream tags do not matter for ELPA release cycles. If
you need to package a more up-to-date package (with good reasons,
I hope), you just point source to upstream instead of ELPA.

HTH,
-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Re: emacs packages and elpa

[Cayetano Santos]

>dim. 31 déc. 2023 at 13:07, Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Cayetano Santos <csantosb@inventati.org> writes:
>
>>   We distribute emacs packages from gnu/elpa by downloading .tar files
>>   from there: I’m thinking about emacs-ggtags.
>>
>>   My first concern is, what emacs-ggtags 0.9.0 corresponds to exactly ?
>>   There is no 0.9.0 tag in upstream github reposotory, and, if I
>>   understand it correctly, elpa just mirrors it
>>
>>     https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/elpa.git/log/?h=externals/ggtags
>>
>>   So what exactly 0.9.0 is ? They bump on the 2018-07-26.  Does it refer
>>   to something more recent ? How to know ? This is for sure elpa
>>   related, ... but we are distributing packages based on their criteria.
>>   It would be great to understand how it goes (at this point, I cannot
>>   clone elpa, for some reason).
>
> For Emacs packages, "Version" keyword in main file, here "ggtags.el", is
> more important than tags because each time that keyword is updated,
> a new release happens on ELPA. In a nutshell, "0.9.0" refers to the
> commit that updated the keyword.

Good to know, thanks.

>>   My second concern is, how do we distribute some more up to date (think
>>   emacs-magit), if we use a .tar from elpa ? When developer decides not
>>   to / forgets to tag a new release, how do we proceed ? Do we use
>>   elpa.gnu.org/devel instead ? I cannot see any example of guix
>>   sources.
>
> As pointed out, upstream tags do not matter for ELPA release cycles.

I see.

Its a bit surprising, because the biggest advantage of guix is being
reproducible and deterministic: one always knows without any ambiguity
which code is in use, by just having a look at guix itself. Having an
extra layer between upstream and the package is kind of weird to me.

> If you need to package a more up-to-date package (with good reasons,
> I hope), you just point source to upstream instead of ELPA.

Regarding ggtags, it is from 5 years ago. More recent updates include
xref support, among others. I think its worth updating.

C.