Re: package.el can't install a circular depend and it should be able to.

[Stefan Monnier]

Tom> It was intended to do a topological sort of the graph and activate
Tom> packages from the bottom up.  If this isn't working then there is a bug.
Stefan> Do we actually need such a topological sort?  I mean the only
Stefan> place where ordering might matter is when loading the autoloads
Stefan> file, AFAICT (for all other steps like download, unpack, compile
Stefan> the order in which packages are processed doesn't matter).
> I thought byte-compiling one package could require that package's
> dependencies, say via eval-when-compile.

Sure, but we can download, unpack, and activate all the packages first,
and only then byte-compile them (at which point, `require' and
eval-when-compile will work just fine, because the other packages are
activated, even if not yet byte-compiled).


        Stefan