Re: Integrating package.el

[Stefan Monnier]

>>> What remains to be done to make package.el a part of Emacs?  I think
>>> Dan Nicolaescu's suggestion about menus makes sense.  Is there anything
>>> else?

SM> For me, the only thing holding it back is the ability to concurrently
SM> install different versions of the same package.

SM> E.g. the sysadmin may install a whole bunch of packages and even
SM> different versions of those packages, and then each user gets to choose
SM> which ones to use in her ~/.emacs.

> Phil and other ELPA folks, please comment, here are my opinions.

> Emacs could recognize the Version header and always track it internally
> when it loads a library file, maybe with a (version . "1.2") in the
> load-history.  That would help a lot, I think.

I personnally don't care about the behavior if the user tries to
activate two different versions of the same package in a given session.
So package.el doesn't even need to do anything special about it AFAIC.

> They get installed as 
> $prefix/NAME-VERSION/NAME.el
> which is a good way to resolve path conflicts.

Yes, it's a good choice for installation location.  It still remains to
distinguish between "installed in the file system" and "active in
a particular session" (where "active" doesn't mean loaded but rather
just that autoloads are in place).


        Stefan