Re: Emacs-Guix released outside from Guix

[Alex Kost]

Ludovic Courtès (2016-12-15 18:39 +0100) wrote:

> Hi Alex!
>
> Alex Kost <address@hidden> skribis:
>
>> Hello, I've been working on Emacs interface outside from the Guix repo
>> for some time, I mean I'm not going to maintain it inside Guix, sorry :-(
>>
>> The main reason, is, well, inconvenience for me: I don't like to bother
>> people with patches, etc.  I tried to explain it at
>> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2016-07/msg01091.html>.
>
> As someone who’s always trusted you to do the right thing, I’m of course
> disappointed that we Guix folks didn’t get notified nor consulted before
> the fact.  I would also have loved a reply to my message back then¹.
> That’s your choice though.
>
> ¹ https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2016-07/msg01110.html

I'm sorry for not answering, I thought I was clear at the time.  I
always feel uncomfortable to send patches or to push commits to the Guix
repo.  I can't explain it properly, it's just painful all the time; but
more importantly, it slowed down the development, as I often decided not
to do small changes.  Contrary, I made more commits to the Emacs-Guix
source tree in the past month, than to the Guix repo during the whole
year.

>> There are 2 more reasons above that:
>>
>> - I'd like to make it available on MELPA (people asked about it several
>>   times in the past);
>
> This is surprising: I’d expect Guix users to install it with Guix, and
> non-Guix users to, well, not care about Guix.

It's not surprising for me: there are people who prefer to install Emacs
packages using Emacs build system, so providing this way to install
"guix.el" seems the right thing for me.

>> - Currently, to be able to use it on non-GuixSD system, a user has to
>>   install 'guix' package into their profile.  This has never looked good
>>   to me (installing a whole guix only for a small part of it). I would
>>   prefer to make "guix package -i emacs-guix" possible instead.
>
> OK.
>
> This change will prevent joint feature development (updating
> completions, ‘emacs-build-system’ and how it interacts with the Emacs
> UI, M-x guix, cross-cutting changes to the UI, and so on).  This isn’t
> good news for users.
>
> Breakage will occasionally occur as the Guix APIs change, which will
> make us all a bit sad.  What are your thoughts?

Well, I was going to make a release and to update the 'emacs-guix'
package after fixing such a breakage.  Actually this way doesn't look
worse for me: when breakages happened in the past, the only way to fix
it was to update 'guix-devel' package.

>> So I'd like to add 'emacs-guix' package (the current patchset) and to
>> remove it from the Guix source tree, if you don't mind.
>
> I think “if you don’t mind” is misplaced.

No, it's not misplaced; not sure what you mean.

>> I'm also sending the following patches:
>>
>> [PATCH 1/2] gnu: Add emacs-bui.
>> [PATCH 2/2] gnu: Add emacs-guix.
>
> OK!

Thanks!  Applied.

> I’ll let you take care of the actual removal, along with update to the
> Texinfo cross-references and doc/htmlxref.cnf (assuming the manual will
> be available on-line.)

Ahem, it will not, at least not soon.

> I think it would help users to keep
> cross-references between the two manuals.

Emacs-Guix manual has many links to the Guix manual, but I think a
single mention of Emacs-Guix in the Guix manual will be enough.  I have
not looked at updating cross-references in the Guix manual yet, though.

> We need to see what Ricardo thinks and whether or not this can be done
> before 0.12, which is slated for sometime next week.

I think this removal can be made later.

> Keep up the great Emacs work.  Long live guix.el!

Thanks, I keep up.

-- 
Alex