Re: New package system design draft
sperber(a)informatik.uni-tuebingen.de (Michael Sperber [Mr. Preprocessor]) writes:
Jan> I would love to see (for the purposes of the install tool)
the debian
Jan> dpkg-style weaker dependencies. Also I would dearly love a list of
Jan> features provided (or at least major and minor modes).
Could you elaborate? I know nothing about dpkg.
The debian package system has progressively weaker dependencies that
are something like this
depends: Technically required to run (typically needed libraries).
recommends: Normal operation typically requires this to be intalled
too.
suggest: This might be useful if you are using this packages.
Only "depends" is enforced by the low level package system. Recommends
and suggests are used by the package installer UI. When you select a
package you are shown all three dependencies with the Depends and
Recommends default to selected.
This makes it a lot easier to find your way around the packages.
In our case for instance auctex would "suggest" reftex.
Jan
Jan> Or more specifically: How do the major/minor modes, menu
entries
Jan> and user commands implemented by packages get advertised?
Via `use-package.' There's no way around that if you want
multiple-version coexistence.
Aren't you throwing out the baby with the bath water then. One my
reasons for using XEmacs was that there are lot more "third party"
tools that you could use. Look how much simpler the installation
instruction for X-symbol and Reftex have become with the current
package system. "Untar, restart, M-x reftex-mode RET". How would
something like
"(auto-compression-mode 1)" work without it being autoloaded etc.
This aspect worries me. I know the current scanning takes time but it
_is_ mighty convenient.
Jan