Re: Stability of core packages (was: Not easy at all to upgrade :core packages like Eglot)

[Jim Porter]

On 4/19/2023 11:34 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2023 11:04:50 -0700
> > Cc: joaotavora@gmail.com, dmitry@gutov.dev, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > From: Jim Porter <jporterbugs@gmail.com>
> >
> > 1. Add gnu-devel to 'package-archives' (this way, I can be sure there's
> > a newer Eglot to upgrade to in one of the archives)
> > 2. M-x list-packages
> > 3. U  ;; package-menu-mark-upgrades
> > 4. x  ;; package-menu-execute
> >
> > When Emacs tells me what packages it will upgrade, Eglot is in the list.
> > However, ERC (which is in ELPA, but I didn't install via package.el) is
> > *not* in the list. Isn't this the behavior we want?[1]
>
> AFAIU, this is not the scenario that João was bothered about.  But I
> let him respond.
>
> But if this is the scenario, then there's no problem, AFAIU what you
> are saying.  So what exactly would you like to add to this discussion?

Two main things (once I hear back from João to confirm):

1) If there are any package-upgrade actions that *don't* work in the way 
I described, we should fix them, using the behavior of 
'package-menu-mark-upgrades' for guidance. As far as I can tell, that's 
the behavior everyone wants, but there could be other scenarios where it 
does something else.

2) More-generally, there's the question of "stability gradations". 
Elsewhere, you suggested listing these in the *Packages* buffer with 
values like "alpha", "current", "stable", etc. We can already do 
something similar to this with additional package archives (e.g. GNU 
ELPA vs GNU-devel ELPA). However, package.el doesn't automatically keep 
track of which channel you used to install a package, so you have to go 
through a fair amount of extra effort to pin your packages to particular 
release channels.

I think (1) is the immediate concern though, and it might be best to 
have a resolution for that before going too far into general solutions 
like (2).