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Re: document package.el
From: |
Tom Tromey |
Subject: |
Re: document package.el |
Date: |
Sat, 21 Aug 2010 19:40:17 -0600 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.2 (gnu/linux) |
>>>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
Eli> Most environments that have Emacs also have the external programs
Eli> needed for the other formats.
... but some don't.
Eli> "Only packagers"? What about a package I downloaded from elsewhere?
Eli> I don't expect many packages nowadays to come in a .tar format.
I don't know what packages you could possibly mean.
Packages for use with package.el must be packaged according to the rules
imposed by package.el. Of these rules, use of .tar is a trivial one,
the other impose a lot more burden.
Users of package.el generally install packages from the package archive,
via the package menu mode. They don't generally just download random
.tar files. And, if they did -- so what? The .tar is just the
distribution format.
Tom> + If the package has an info manual, you should distribute the needed
Tom> +info files, plus a @file{dir} file made with @command{install-info}.
Eli> Not clear why the `dir' file is needed. Are you trying to support
Eli> users that don't have install-info on their systems?
Tom> Yes.
Eli> Why?
My goal in writing package.el was a seamless user experience. I tried
hard to minimize the number of error modes that a user could see.
Hence:
* Use of .tar and not anything else, even .tar.gz -- because .tar can be
unpacked entirely in elisp.
* Use of package dependencies, to make it so you can't install a package
and have it not work.
* Before I upload a package I also generally make a point of looking at
how it is activated, looking at least for autoload cookies.
The general theme is to make packagers do a bit more work so that users
get a better experience.
Tom
- Re: document package.el, (continued)
- Re: document package.el, Tom Tromey, 2010/08/27
- Re: document package.el, Chong Yidong, 2010/08/27
- Re: document package.el, Richard Stallman, 2010/08/27
- Re: document package.el, Christoph, 2010/08/27
- Re: document package.el, Uday S Reddy, 2010/08/28
- Re: document package.el, Eli Zaretskii, 2010/08/08
- Re: document package.el, Chong Yidong, 2010/08/08
- Re: document package.el, Uday S Reddy, 2010/08/17