Re: cl-defstruct-based package.el, now with ert tests and no external tar!

[Dmitry Gutov]

Hi Daniel,

Any news on this?

I've been holding off on Bug#13291 both because it would complicate the
rebase of this changeset, and also because I'd like to use the test
harness you have here.

Daniel Hackney <address@hidden> writes:
>>> I've been looking at the patch, trying to understand what it does, and
>>> I think I'd first really need to see a good description of what it does,
>>> because obviously it doesn't just switch to using a defstruct.  It also
>>> does things like renaming functions and various minor refactorings that
>>> don't seem directly related (they don't necessarily seem bad either,
>>> but I wasn't able to understand all of what's going on from just
>>> looking at the patch).
>
> I'll do a better job of explaining the whole patch. Should I include
> that in some sort of file in the repo or just on the mailing list?
> Would a detailed-ish explanation of the changes and rationale be
> appropriate for the ChangeLog or NEWS files?

You can start with ChangeLog files. When writing a changelog entry, one
usually briefly describes and sometimes justifies the mechanical
transformations being performed on the code, and it helps other people
understand the changes. I'd hold off on writing a separate extensive
description until receiving follow-up questions.

I see you've also already started on NEWS entries.

> About package-x.el, is the HTML and RSS updating functionality actually
> used? Currently, the only way to access the functionality is calling
> `package-maint-add-news-item' or the non-interactive
> `package-upload-buffer-internal' directly. GNU ELPA clearly doesn't use
> the version in package-x.el, as the HTML generated is not what
> package-x produces.

Probably not. Melpa and Elpakit don't seem to be using it either.

> Can I consider it unused and delete it? If not, I'll refactor it with
> the rest of the code.

Personally, I'd delete them, but that's not my call. Maybe decorate them
with FIXMEs, leave them unfixed and see if anyone complains up until the
pretest?