Re: Ignored bugs

[Tim Cross]

Pankaj Jangid <pankaj@codeisgreat.org> writes:

> Daniele Nicolodi <daniele@grinta.net> writes:
>
>> On 17/11/2020 19:41, Boruch Baum wrote:
>>> A little over a month ago, I submitted several bug reports related to
>>> org-mode, and sor most of them haven't seen any action whatsoever, not
>>> even an indication that they were noticed. In many cases, I provided
>>> either a total solution or a suggested implementation of a solution.
>>>
>>> BUG REPORT: 42484
>>
>> I haven't investigated further than reading this email, but the fact
>> that you are including what look like debbug numbers suggests that you
>> reported those bugs against Emacs.
>>
>> Org is mostly developed outside Emacs and has an independent release
>> cycle. Emacs syncs irregularly with the latest released version of Org.
>
> I was completely unaware of this. I also used to report bugs via emacs'
> report-emacs-bug fascility.
>
> Moreover, I am building emacs from `master' everyday and assuming
> everything is latest on this. If Org is a different beast then probably
> we should do two things:
>
> 1. Remove Org from built-in packages and distribute only via ELPA
>
> 2. And have a completely separate infrastructure for development,
> mailing-lists, bug reports. This we already have. But we should follow
> convention so that it is easier for user to report-org-bugs.
>

Org mode is now an official part of Emacs, so that boat has sailed.

If we wanted to have only one official version, it would have to be the
one bundled with Emacs (or in the ELPA repository I think?). However,
that would also slow down the releases to fit with the GNU Emacs release
policy. When I last built Emacs 28 (9th Nov), org was still at 9.3.
Latest version taken from org repository is 9.4

While org development is on-going, most of the changes are refinements
rather than new features. For most people, there will be little
functional difference between 9.3 and 9.4. I started using the org repo
version ages ago, when there were features in the latest version not in
the bundled version. If I was starting again from now, I would be
tempted to stick with the built-in version and prioritise stability over
bleeding edge.

>> Bug report affecting the latest release of Org can be submitted to this
>> mailing list. This is also the best way to make them known to the Org
>> developers and maintainer.
>
> I don't know how the tracking works if bugs are reported in a mailing
> list.
>
>> I don't think anyone here really looks into
>> bugs reported to the Emacs debbugs instance: time is limited and the
>> version of Org distributed with Emacs is very often not the most current
>> one, thus the bug reports may anyhow not be relevant anyhow.
>>
>> I suggest you to try to reproduce these bugs with the latest Org release
>> (or the latest snapshot from Org ELPA) and report on this list if the
>> problems persist, see `org-submit-bug-report'.
>
> I am trying to use `use-package' for package management via the init
> file. And when I do (use-package org :ensure t) it doesn't install the
> latest. It uses the builtin package only. Is this a bug in emacs,
> use-package or elpa?

Not a bug at all. You have to configure your emacs to obtain the latest
version from the org (or MELPA?) repository.

If you really want the most recent org version, you need to add the org
ELPA repository to your packages.el repository list. I have the
following in my setup -

(add-to-list 'package-archives `("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/";))
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("org" . "http://orgmode.org/elpa/";))

If you also want to get the org-plus-contrib version and your using
'use-package', you need something like

(use-package org
    :ensure org-plus-contrib
    ....)

because the package is 'org' but is in org-plus-contrib (there is also
just an 'org' package that does not include all the contrib libs).

Note that it is CRITICAL that the code to load the org package is run
*before* any org functionality is loaded. If you fail to do this, you
will end up with a mixed (and broken) environment where some of the
version bundled with emacs is loaded and some which is part of the newer
version is loaded. Provided nothing has loaded any org stuff before the
use-package stanza for org is run, everything will be OK. For this
reason, it is good to load the package early (first) in case other
packages you load try to load org etc).


--
Tim Cross