Re: [ELPA] New package: SachaC-news

[Christian]

Hi!

On Mon, 13 Nov 2023 23:56:15 -0300,
Richard Stallman wrote:
>
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > I want to propose SachaC-news (or sachac-news.el if you like)
>   > package to be included in ELPA.
>
> Are you the developer of the SachaC-news program?
> I would guess so, but I'd like to be sure rather than guess.

Yes, I am the developer... Well, now, Philip Kaluderci is too a
developer of SachaC-news :)

>
>                                     Its objective is to check for
>   > Sacha Chua's news repository periodically, and to show the Org
>   > file if there is a new commit with a new post in it.
>
> What other formats does this repository store postings in?  If it has
> -- or can generate -- plain text, that should be preferred.
> There are users who like Org fornat, but it is not Emacs's preferred
> way of showing information.

Sacha Chua creates her blog posts using this file written in
Org-mode. This mode is installed by default on Emacs 29 [1] and
can export to other formats: LaTeX, HTML, plain text, TeXInfo
and info (by installing ox-texinfo), etc.

Mmm... I suppose... I can add a customization to show an
exported buffer instead the Org-mode buffer. For example, if
sachac-news-show-plain-text is set to t, it  will do the
overall process, but add an extra step to export the Org file
into plain text... or even generalize this idea to use any
export dispatch function... I believe it can be
implemented... what do you think?

>
>   > The
>   > requirement is the git program to be installed on your system.
>
> Could you say what task it does using git?  Is Sacha's news repository
> a git repository?  That might be ok, but where is it?  I hope not
> github!  Where is that archive stored?  Can you please tell us its
> URL?

Sure, it uses "git clone URL" to clone the repository if it
does not exists; or it updates the current local repository by
executing "git pull" [2].

Recently, I have just added a customization variable to set the
URL to Sacha's Emacs News repository (see [3]). By default, its
value is [4] which is a clone of the original. This repository
will be automatically updated once a day, if there is a new
blog post. However, you can change it to any other repository
URL with an index.org file if you like.

>
> We deprecate use of github, so if we are going to have Emacs use a
> specific git repo for particular purposes, we should put it on a repo
> site that we recommend.

Oh! I found the article "GNU Ethical Repository Criteria
Evaluations" [5] which eases me to search for a new repository
service to move the project (thanks for writing it!). According
to the table in it, I decided to move sachac-news repository to
sr.ht, which is grade B ("Good enough to recommend").

I have an account on savannah.gnu.org. If it is needed, I can
request a new repository there. But it will require some time
to be approved.

>
> The name SachaC-News suggests that Sacha Chua maintains that archive.
> Is that correct?

Sacha Chua maintains her emacs-news blog posts [6], and creates
them by using the index.org file in that archive (or so it
seems as far as I can understand the code in it, I have not
asked her yet!).

>
> What formats does it store articles in?  Is Org
> format the only one?

Her repository has only the index.org file. But, it can be
exported to other formats too.

>
> Org format is NOT the Emacs standard or preferred format, and not
> everyone uses it.  Therefore, if we add a command to display some
> useful information, it should not use Org format.
>
> The best format to use is plain text.

Maybe, the name "Org" is not correct? I mean Org-mode [7] (I
call it "Org" casually, sorry for that)... I thought it is
considered as a plain text format. I love it and use it
for... well... almost everything. If I am wrong in any way,
please tell me.

>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
> Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
> Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
>
>

Cheers!
Christian.

[1] This is the Org-mode at the latest commit in Emacs 29
repository:
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/lisp/org?h=emacs-29&id=da946ca6924b5ba1a1c785284406cf894aef12b5

[2] This line implements the git clone and git update:
https://git.sr.ht/~cngimenez/sachac-news/tree/6798169e06f12543346753602406476e7af288f1/item/sachac-news.el#L460

[3] sachac-news-sacha-repository-url at this line:
https://git.sr.ht/~cngimenez/sachac-news/tree/6798169e06f12543346753602406476e7af288f1/item/sachac-news.el#L114

[4] https://git.sr.ht/~cngimenez/sachac-emacs-news

[5] https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation.html

[6] https://sachachua.com/blog/category/emacs-news/

[7] https://orgmode.org/

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