bug#62720: 29.0.60; Not easy at all to upgrade :core packages like Eglot

[João Távora]

On Fri, Apr 14, 2023 at 5:28 PM Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

> The only way I can think of to preserve compatibility is to change the
> behavior so it doesn't pay attention to "is builtin or not" but to "used
> to be builtin before Emacs-29".

Exactly, I suggested this via whiteslisting.  This would be blacklisting
and would be slightly cleaner.

> This would make a bad semantics even worse, so I'd rather we fix
> the semantics to something clean.

Bad semantics or not, at least it wouldn't break stuff, and that
blacklist would stay put.  Installing from it would require papal
benediction and that's it :-)

> > I think it should do the same thing, not only because it's
> > nicer for the unsuspecting user, but also because trying to
> > protect this user from "unintentional" upgrade of certain "unstable"
> > packages, as it seems to be the idea here, is a losing game
> > anyway, just because dependencies.
>
> You may be right: maybe the distinction between "install only" and
> "install&upgrade" isn't worth the trouble.
>
> I think to get closer to a useful "install only" behavior we'd want that
> command to prompt the user before upgrading dependencies (tho probably
> only for those in `package-selected-packages`).
>
> BTW, for me the reluctance to upgrade when asked to install isn't due to
> the risk that the package is "unstable".  I'm not completely sure what
> is the reason, admittedly, but it's closer to viewing it as a silent
> "change of distribution", or maybe it's because I like to know when
> behavior may change and merely installing a package shouldn't change
> Emacs's behavior.

I don't follow, they don't. Eexcept for major modes, that is, those autoload
changes into auto-mode-alist.  As for adding new commands, and
functionality to your existing modes, well you _did_ ask for the
package to be upgraded (yes I know the name is "install", but upgrading
is what it has always done).

João