Re: windows installer

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Monnier <address@hidden>
> Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2017 15:46:09 -0500
> 
> > They _will_ want to add it to PATH if they want to install packages
> > from the likes of ELPA, which frequently come with Makefiles that
> > invoke Emacs to compile the Lisp files.
> 
> For lack of familiarity with the Windows world, I don't know if typical
> Windows users will want to add it to PATH (as a GNU/Linux user, of
> course I'd do that), but I think the "frequently" above is incorrect.
> 
> The way Elisp files are compiled by package.el is to do it in the
> running Emacs rather than by executing a separate Emacs session, AFAIK.
> 
> And even if you configure it to use something like async.el, doesn't
> (expand-file-name invocation-name invocation-directory) let async.el find
> an Emacs executable even when it's not in PATH?

Maybe I'm missing something.  29 packages (out of 166) in ELPA have a
Makefile.  Taking just one random Makefile, company/Makefile, I see
this:

  EMACS=emacs
  [...]

  compile:
          ${EMACS} -Q --batch -L . -f batch-byte-compile company.el company-*.el

If this Makefile is invoked with "make compile", it clearly expects
Emacs to be found along PATH.  And even if Make is invoked from Emacs,
the directory where the Emacs binary was found is not added to PATH.
So how can this work without Emacs's binary being on PATH?  And what
am I missing here?