Subject: Re: bug#60418: [PATCH] Add :vc keyword to use-package

From: Philip Kaludercic <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2023 07:34:01 +0000

Tony Zorman <[email-masked]> writes:

> On Sat, Apr 08 2023 11:25, Felician Nemeth wrote:
>>> [...] All I want to understand is the motivation behind this feature
>>> in the first place.
>>
>> One use-case is to let package developers to distribute thier packages
>> without a package archive.  Or more precisely, to let users conveniently
>> install packages that are not in a package archive.
>
> FWIW, this was also my motivation for making this change. It's just
> incredibly convenient to be able to do this without installing
> third-party dependencies.

I think that this is a legitimate point, and I would be ready to push
this change if you could adjust the patch to checkout the latest release
instead of the latest commit by default, as Felician proposed.  Does
that sound good to you?

> Further, it also makes testing out new changes very easy. For example, I
> wanted to try out the overhauled LaTeX preview system that was proposed
> for Org mode [1]. Rather than having to clone the respective repo and
> check out the branch manually, this was just a
>
>     (use-package org
>       :vc (:url "https://git.tecosaur.net/tec/org-mode.git" :branch "dev"))
>
> away, which is certainly a win in my book. 

To be fair, use-package is not necessary here.  You can also just use
package-vc-checkout to download a package to some directory and check it
out that way.  I have a command somewhere that even automates the
selection and would just "install" the package for a single session.

> [1]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2023-03/msg00196.html