Re: user-controlled load-path extension: load-dir

[Chad Brown]

On Mar 8, 2011, at 12:01 PM, Dimitri Fontaine wrote:
> With this new facility, we could say to newbies to just save the
> <file>.el in ~/.emacs.d/load.d and do M-x load-user-files, or even M-x
> load-new-user-files.

Without the problems of a magic directory, we just just tell the user something
like:

``in emacs: M-x browse-packages RET, browse to <packagename>, and click 
`install'.''

or, for random `snippets' in things like github or emacswiki:

``in emacs: M-x install-by-url RET <paste URL here>''

and have emacs download the package, unpack it, describe it to the user, and 
offer to activate it (adding any necessary code to .emacs, probably via a 
custom-style equivalent).  This could also ask any required questions up front. 
This seems easier (for the user) and more capable (for the developer).  Why the 
opposition? Emacs already contains facilities that modify the user's startup 
files for them, and has for decades.

From the point of view of emacs 24 and inexperienced users, I again suggest 
that the Firefox extensions/themes mechanism is a much better model to examine 
than magic directories.
 
I hope that helps.
*Chad