Re: On Contributing To Emacs

[Ihor Radchenko]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> So if we want to add something like that to CONTRIBUTE, we need to
> rephrase it so that it fits the purpose of this file.  I cannot yet
> see how to rephrase that, but that's probably because I don't
> understand Ihor's request in the first place: why would it be useful
> to have this information in CONTRIBUTE, which is a large file most of
> which is utterly irrelevant to ELPA?

My thinking was as follows:

1. There was a complaint:

>> - Development velocity is glacial. With releases around once per year
>> and there being no easily accessible distribution mechanism for
>> development updates, high-velocity projects or projects that must adapt
>> to a changing ecosystem (straight.el satisfies both of those criteria)
>> simply do not have a place in Emacs core as it exists today.

2. The answer to it was that core packages can be distributed through ELPA
   to provide updates between Emacs releases.

3. I tried to simulate a newcomer aiming to contribute a new built-in
   package to Emacs, but willing to update the contribution frequently.

   I opened CONTRIBUTE file and tried to search useful information with
   the above setup in mind.

4. I did not find anything useful from a first glance (from folded
   headlines)

5. Because someone in the thread pointed that frequent updates in Emacs
   core can be distributed through ELPA, I looked into ELPA section.

6. ELPA section is very confusing with this mindset (and in general as
   well).

   I suggested to improve it by adding information that ELPA can be
   actually used to distribute built-in packages.

   Note that in my last reply to Stefan I also began to think that
   information about built-in package updates should better be described
   in a dedicated section that is visible from the outline.

Best,
Ihor