Re: Merging Finder into package mechanism

[Juri Linkov]

>> I think Keywords should be additional package attribute
>> along with Name, Version, Brief description, Long description.
>
> There should definitely be a way to search packages by keyword, but I am
> not sure if setting them as package attributes is necessary.  I am
> experimenting with a few different approaches, such as storing a
> keyword-to-package map in the repository.

It's better to have all package information in one place.
I suggest not to lose information that was in finder-inf.el.

Before your changes:

    ("ediff.el"
        "a comprehensive visual interface to diff & patch"
        (comparing merging patching tools unix))

After:

  (ediff .
    [(2 81 4) nil "a comprehensive visual interface to diff & patch"])

It would be easier for libraries to access keywords from the same data
structure, e.g.

  (ediff .
    [(2 81 4) nil "a comprehensive visual interface to diff & patch"
     (comparing merging patching tools unix)])

> We can simply have `make finder-data'
> collect information about built-in packages.  During
> `package-initialize' (usually called at startup), Emacs can supplement
> the data in finder-inf.el using cached information about elpa.gnu.org
> packages.  During `package-refresh-contents', when Emacs connects to
> elpa.gnu.org, it can update this information.

Yes, finder-inf.el is a cache for built-ins, so you could create a similar
cache for elpa.gnu.org packages.

>> Does this mean that `list-packages' will list all Emacs built-in
>> packages (in addition to elpa packages)?  Maybe not bad, after all.
>
> Yeah.  There's a lot of built-in packages (around 400), so we should
> probably also add a toggle to hide them.

Or create separate commands to list either built-in packages
or elpa packages.