Re: What is GNU ELPA?

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 17.05.2020 17:49, Yoni Rabkin wrote:
> In case it is an interesting data point, ELPA may be invisible and
> un-discoverable to many Emacs users. Here is why I think this may be the
> case:
>
> I've been using Emacs for decades, and I use it every day for my living
> (read: Emacs is crucial to me and my family). I have a few packages
> installed in an ~/elisp/  directory and I load those manually via my
> ~/.emacs.
>
> Over all of these years I have never had Emacs ask, offer, or otherwise
> point out ELPA. The only reason I know it even exists is because as a
> GNU maintainer of some emacs extensions, people sometimes asked my why
> those extensions are not in ELPA. At that point, I needed to try and
> figure out what ELPA even was (not to mention what MELPA was, and what
> the difference is between them.)

I think that ties in to my suggestion that we should promote ELPA more, 
no less.

Probably feature it in the Getting Started guide. Maybe even on the 
startup screen.

The menu item "Manage Emacs Packages" could also use a more prominent 
position.

> Please don't take this as criticism of ELPA or the efforts of the 
people who work on it, as it is not intended to be one. Instead, I 
wanted to share my real-world use of Emacs in relation to ELPA, in case 
it would be a valuable data-point for the people who are considering the 
question in the subject of the thread: "What is GNU ELPA?"

In your opinion, what would have been the best option to raise awareness 
of it?