Re: MELPA version numbers

[Steve Purcell]

On 2 Aug 2013, at 16:47, Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> wrote:

>>> No, it doesn't really solve the problem: most people wouldn't know when
>>> MELPA's version is out of date.  How would you know to switch archive if
>>> package.el doesn't tell you that there's a newer version in the
>>> "gnu" archive?
>> How exactly can that happen given that MELPA *always* builds VCS
>> snapshots, with are *by definition* the most recent state of a
>> package?
> 
> Steve asks similarly:
>> Can that even happen, for longer than a MELPA build cycle?
> 
> Well, it can happen (and has happened, IIRC I saw it for csv-mode, tho
> it seems to be fixed now) because MELPA gives you the latest revision of
> the DVCS branch it point at, but that branch may be abandoned.


Yes, that would be a fault in MELPA's recipe; we've typically corrected this 
promptly when it has arisen previously, but I agree that there's no easy way to 
detect this situation.

-Steve