RE: ELPA and EmacsWiki Updates

[Drew Adams]

> Nordlöw> I am using a lot of Emacs Extensions from EmacsWiki for 
> Nordlöw> example the brilliant Icicles. Can ELPA or some other
> Nordlöw> package automatically synchronize/update my copies of
> Nordlow> these extensions with some nice Emacs Package?
> 
> There is some other installer on the wiki that might help here.  I
> don't know, I haven't used it (since it doesn't have the features I
> want).
> 
> FWIW, the reason that Icicles is not in ELPA is that the Icicles
> author did not want it there.

Hmm. That's not quite right, Tom. What I said at the time was that it seemed 
(then) that some package system (possibly ELPA) would soon be added to Emacs, 
and I was intending to wait to see what Icicles changes might be needed to 
adapt it for use with the (future) standard package system.

Now, it looks like there will be no such standard Emacs package system. Why 
don't you email me off list to talk again about what I might need to do to make 
Icicles Elpable?

However, it's also true that I said that (1) I appreciate the simplicity of 
uploading to Emacs Wiki, and (2) there are already several ways to download all 
of Icicles at once from the wiki (see 
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Libraries#BulkIciclesDownload). 
I'm not sure what Nordlow needs beyond that, or whether he has even tried those 
ways.

Anyway, my mind is not closed against ELPA for Icicles (or Icicles for ELPA). 
I'm not too clear on what I would need to do - feel free to contact me about 
it. Especially if it's just a one-time change, and not too difficult, it's 
likely that I will do it.

Is there a way for ELPA to get stuff automatically from Emacs Wiki - that is, 
stuff that has been made Elpable? That would be a big help.

There are already several sites that provide Emacs-Lisp libraries (including 
Emacs-Lisp List, Emacs Wiki, and ELPA, not to mention sites of individual 
authors and group projects), and there is gnu-emacs-sources@gnu.org. 

It would be great if library authors could simply upload to one site and have 
the others feed off of that. (Via RSS? I don't know anything about RSS, so 
don't laugh if it's irrelevant here.) Emacs Wiki already mirrors the Emacs-Lisp 
List, but it would, IMO, be much better the other way around: it would be good 
if other sites that are more like simple repositories fed off of the code 
posted to the wiki.

I prefer Emacs Wiki for its simplicity, including the ability - by anyone - to 
easily post or update code and associated documentation. In particular, the 
hyperlinking makes it a tremendous resource for everyone - much better, IMO, 
than just a check-in/out code repository. The wiki has no notion of packages, 
however, so it would be helpful if a package system such as ELPA could feed off 
of the wiki somehow.

> As for other things not being in ELPA, the general reason for this is
> that I probably haven't gotten around to it yet.  Smaller (single
> file) packages tend to require some comment fixes first, and I'm not
> always clear on what people actually use (and what therefore would be
> worthwhile to upload).  Larger packages often require some extra
> preparation.
> 
> And, finally, I like to coordinate with maintainers so that:
> 
> * Any needed patches go upstream
> * The package has a "nice" activation approach (autoloads comments in
>   place, whatever), and
> * so that maintainers know to send me new versions when released

See my comments above. In my case, I don't make package "releases". I enhance 
or fix one library (or more) of the "package" and upload it immediately to the 
wiki, without changing anything else in the "package". I don't repackage, zip, 
tar, or anything else. I just diff the old and the new file, write a comment in 
the new file, and upload it - without the unchanged rest of the package. On the 
wiki I can easily compare previous revisions of a file and roll the current 
revision back if necessary. Users can easily see what has changed and download 
just a single library change. (They can also download the entire package, if 
they want.)

I'm not against a package system, depending on what that means, but it would be 
ideal, I think, if packages were more or less virtual, updated automatically 
whenever a member file is updated on the wiki. Perhaps a wiki-based package 
system of some kind would be appropriate? If not, then it would be good if a 
standalone package system such as ELPA could feed itself off of the wiki.

> I'm happy to have help with any or all of this :-).  If there's enough
> demand I'll move the ELPA repository to a site like savannah so that
> other folks can do uploads as well.

FWIW, I haven't noticed Savannah being anywhere near as simple to use as Emacs 
Wiki. No flames from Savannah-ites, please.