Re: Updating the "ELPA Protocol"

[Jonas Bernoulli]

Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> writes:

> Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> One issue I have been told is the issue of renaming a package, so that
>> package.el can transparently handle the rename.  That appears to not be
>> supported.
>
> How about using something like Debian's transitional packages, where you
> replace the old package with an empty package that just depends on the
> new package?  Would that work?

I would prefer if package.el took care of it.
`package-update-all' could ask:

  Package `foo' has been renamed to `foobar'.
  When a package is renamed, then names of variables and functions
  often change as well, making it necessary to adjust configuration.

  Would you like to replace `foo' with `foobar' now?
  yes/no/no, don't ask again

Somewhat related, I have again started working on moving Melpa
("unstable") away from using timestamps as version strings.  Eventually
users will have to update from, e.g., 20230101.123 to the smaller 0.2.3.
Here too I hope we could add a special case to package.el.  It wouldn't
have to remain in place forever; other *elpa are unlikely to repeat the
mistake of using timestamps.

And while I am at it, the most important "feature" I am hoping for is
for package.el to be added to GNU Elpa, so that we can start relying on
the newly added features, without having to wait half a decade.