Re: Integrating package.el

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:05:47 -0500 Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> wrote: 

>>>> 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.

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

OK.  But I still think Emacs should record the version as I suggested
whenever it finds it in a .el/.elc file.  It would help resolve many
annoying user-level bugs by showing exactly what version of the library
was loaded, not implied from the directory but directly from the version
header.  Does that require lots of changes?

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

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

I think Phil or Tom should comment, I don't know how they plan to
address your concerns.

Ted