Re: feature request: library versioning

interesting ... one of my projects-to-do is to create the concept of "behavior", which ought to be "feature" or "package" but both are already taken. it's motivated by the fact that there's no standardized way to enable or disable various packages. steve only made it worse by insisting [reasonably] that the de-facto standard "load the file to enable it" needed to go away, but not proposing any standard to replace it. i want to see something like (register-behavior 'mouse-avoidance :filename "avoid.el" :version 3.51 :enable (mouse-avoidance-mode 1) :disable (mouse-avoidance-mode 0) etc) this could be a statement executed while the .el file loads; in that case, the :filename is unnecessary and the name is automatically taken from the loading file. the filename is there in case the registration is provided elsewhere, e.g. you're adding register statements on behalf of existing packages you don't want to modify. a relative name like this refers to the load-path. (Multiple behaviors could be registered in a single .el file. We definitely do not want to force the concept of a useful behavior to have anything to do with files; many small behaviors could be in one file, and one behavior might require many files.) behaviors should choose their names carefully to try to avoid namespace clash. again, don't use the typically short filename, and as a lesson from the two infidels who created two unrelated whitespace-modes, make sure your behavior's name describes exactly what it does. if two of the same behaviors but of different versions get loaded at different times, the more recent one wins -- although overall aspects like this can be customized. what think you? "Stephen J. Turnbull" wrote: -- Ben In order to save my hands, I am cutting back on my mail. I also write as succinctly as possible -- please don't be offended. If you send me mail, you _will_ get a response, but please be patient, especially for XEmacs-related mail. If you need an immediate response and it is not apparent in your message, please say so. Thanks for your understanding. See also http://www.666.com/ben/chronic-pain/