Re: feature/package-vc has been merged

[Philip Kaludercic]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> I have made :lisp-dir a general property of a package description.  This
>> might be set in package-vc when generating the <PKG>-pkg.el, but in
>> principle any (non-vc) package could make use of this to indicate a
>> subdirectory where lisp files are stored.  For now this is something
>> that will probably only interest package-vc.
>
> Hmm... but if a package does that in an ELPA archive (i.e. the
> `:lisp-dir` thingy appears in the `archive-contents`), then this package
> will not be installed correctly when installed with an older
> Emacs, right?
>
> IOW, it's an extension of the ELPA protocol.

Strictly speaking yes, but without any specification it is hard to say.
All this is intended as is an extra field that is stored in a package
description file.

Do you have any other suggestion that could be implemented to solve the
immediate problem that package-vc has (lisp files are located in some
sub-directory and we want to avoid loading package-vc during
initialisation).

> I do think it's getting time to update the protocol based on the
> experience gained over the last 10 years, but I'm really not convinced
> `:lisp-dir` is a good addition.
>
> E.g. a thing I'd find more interesting would be to let the tarball provide
> its own <PKG>-autoloads.el (which is in charge of adding whichever
> lisp-dirs it wants).

That sounds like a better idea.