Re: emacs packages

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Federico Beffa <beffa@ieee.org> skribis:

> On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 11:12 PM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>> Federico Beffa <beffa@ieee.org> skribis:

[...]

>>>>> Unfortunately this doesn't work without modification. The reason is
>>>>> that I follow the emacs package.el strategy to install each ELPA
>>>>> package in it's own sub-directory. Specifically, I'm installing each
>>>>> package into ".../site-lisp/guix.d/PACKAGE-NAME-VERSION/".  The code
>>>>> in 'guix.el', however, doesn't look in sub-directories below the
>>>>> profile's '.../site-lisp'.

[...]

>>> the reason for using separate sub-directories is that many packages
>>> include files, such as README, ChangeLog, ..., that are likely to
>>> clash. Even if we would delete all non ".el" files (which probably is
>>> not safe), with more than 2500 packages on MELPA, it is possible that
>>> we would still experience some name clashes. I can imagine that
>>> someone preparing a package may be unaware of the existence of some
>>> other package, possibly not very popular in his circle.
>>
>> What about copying all the .el files to .../site-lisp, and copy the
>> other files elsewhere (for instance, ‘README’ and ‘ChangeLog’ to
>> share/doc/$PACKAGE, and .info files to share/info)?
>
> I am copying .info files to share/info.

Ah OK, perfect then!

> I'm not copying README files to share/doc because these usually do not
> provide useful documentation for the user and ChangeLog are usually
> not up-to-date relict. But if somebody feels strongly about it, I can
> change that.

No, that’s fine.

>> Note that name clashes in profiles are annoying, but not fatal.
>
> For .el files they are.

They are fatal but rare, no?  My impression is that people prefix their
.el file names with the package name.  In my profile I have emms, bbdb,
emacs-w3m, magit & deps, geiser, cflow, etc. and there are zero clashes.
I don’t see any clash in the dozen of packages I still have in
~/.emacs.d/elpa/ either.

> I also do not think that it is very sane ending up with a flat
> directory including hundreds of files. Some hierarchy makes the
> organization much more apparent and clean.

The problem is that, unlike Guile modules, elisp module names are
inherently flat, hence the PACKAGE-foo.el convention that people seem to
follow.

But perhaps that convention is not strictly followed, which would
explain why package.el took this route?

I don’t feel strongly against what you suggest.  My main concern would
be the introduction of extra complexity that’s not strictly needed, but
you seem to be saying that it *is* needed.

Regardless, what matters most to me is that guix.el and
‘emacs-build-system’ work consistently.

Thank you!

Ludo’.