Re: Integrating package.el

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:51:06 -0700 Tom Tromey <address@hidden> wrote: 

Tom> It also needs to be changed to be able to manage multiple install
Tom> locations, if it is to be used to manage site-lisp.

Good point, but do you mean multiple search locations for existing
installs?  I would expect a single install location, otherwise it gets
complicated...

Ted> I don't know about the other packages that come with Emacs, but Gnus
Ted> could probably benefit from package.el-style installation (I don't speak
Ted> for the Gnus project, though, so I can bring it up on the mailing list
Ted> if necessary).  A better setup process for Gnus would be really nice,
Ted> though.  The usual pre-install and post-install scripts you find in RPM
Ted> or DEB would help.  I suspect many other packages would benefit from a
Ted> better setup process through package.el.

Tom> If you want to try packaging it, I can explain what you need to do.
Tom> It is usually quite easy.

I think the pre-install and post-install steps are pretty important.
Without them, packaging Gnus doesn't do much.  I want the post-install
to actually set up the user's Gnus configuration.  This has been a very
common complaint about Gnus.  Installing it is the easy part, since it
comes with Emacs.  Can package.el support that?  I can't tell if this is
the "activate" or the "load" stage (are they states or state
transitions?  English can be so ambiguous...) or something new; also it
seems like this is something external to Gnus, a function of the ELPA
wrapper (although it may be bundled within Gnus) rather than something
Gnus will always run for new users.  This is the major question I have
before I propose this packaging on the Gnus mailing list.

I also want to know if you and Phil want to make Gnus your first
Emacs-hosted package, or if there's going to be a ELPA clone of Gnus.
I'd actually like both: the Emacs-hosted version is "Emacs-supported
Gnus" while the ELPA versions are "bleeding-edge Gnus from CVS" and
"latest Gnus release."  The last one is usually but not always
synchronized with the Emacs release; I'll need to ask the other Gnus
developers what they think.  At least two Gnus versions in package.el
make sense in any case.

Ted