XEmacs packages (was: Core ELPA was: Testing fontification, indentation, and buffer manipulation)

[Stefan Monnier]

> I will note that this is going where XEmacs was before, and I don't
> think the result was encouraging, FWIW.

My recollection of it is that they had some problems with it, especially
at the beginning, but I don't think they regretted it at all.

And our situation is quite different:

- They did a "big change" where they split the previously-combined
  XEmacs into XEmacs-core on one side and the sumo-meta-package on
  the other.  That was obviously painful because it was a big change,
  and also because they tried to make the XEmacs-core part as small
  as possible.
  In contrast, I haven't heard anyone suggest such a drastic change:
  only a gradual change by moving some packages from emacs.git to
  elpa.git bit by bit.

- I think XEmacs packages were more costly than ELPA packages in terms
  of maintenance.  2 reasons for that: one is that they were
  pre-compiled (which implies more work to package and more
  compatibility problems) and the other is that several of those
  XEmacs-packages were maintained by other people than the "upstream
  maintainer".


-- Stefan