Package: emacs;
Reported by: No Wayman <iarchivedmywholelife <at> gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2024 16:26:03 UTC
Severity: wishlist
Found in version 30.0.50
Message #32 received at 69410 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):
From: Philip Kaludercic <philipk <at> posteo.net> To: No Wayman <iarchivedmywholelife <at> gmail.com> Cc: Tony Zorman <soliditsallgood <at> mailbox.org>, 69410 <at> debbugs.gnu.org Subject: Re: bug#69410: 30.0.50; [WISHLIST] Use-package: allow :ensure to accept package spec instead of separate :vc keyword Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2024 15:52:17 +0000
No Wayman <iarchivedmywholelife <at> gmail.com> writes: > Philip Kaludercic <philipk <at> posteo.net> writes: > >> The issue was that I didn't see the bug report, due to the >> "wishlist" >> status (I believe you should have seen my other message). The best >> practice on mailing lists is to include people you think can provide >> input, as I did with Tony. If you have any further questions >> regarding >> package-vc, feel free to add a >> >> X-Debbugs-CC: Philip Kaludercic <philipk <at> posteo.net> >> >> header, to make sure that I get notified. I believe this kind of a >> convention is something that GitHub-Style issue trackers also have >> when >> adding a @... to a message. > > Clunky. A point in favor of moving to some sort of forge which can > improve upon that process. We can't change that here; I just want you to know what you can do within the existing structures to improve communication. > Odd to me that whatever you're viewing the list with would exclude > feature requests by default, too. I use the "debbugs" package, and was surprised as well. >>>> :ensure could accept: >>>> >>>> - nil: do not attempt to install anything >>>> - t: attempt to install via the user's chosen default package >>>> manager - a symbol name: install package matching that symbol name >>>> with default package manager >>>> - a recipe spec: install via a forge capable package manager using >>>> that package recipe. >> >> But that would be incompatible with package-vc, as the default >> installation remains (and should remain) tarballs. Most of the >> time, >> you don't need to give any package specification when installing a >> package, as they are provided by ELPA servers. > > Okay, then allow :ensure to take `t` meaning, "install the tarball" > and `:vc` as a special case to use package-vc.el. e.g. > > (use-package example :ensure :vc) ;;install via package-vc. Doesn't this go against your suggestion to have a uniform interface? As we mentioned previously, :vc t can do this as well, without the need to handle special values. >> But generally speaking, the potential for confusion between >> ELPA-style >> package specifications and MELPA-style package recipes just sounds >> like >> something that has a lot of potential for confusion. > > Using the same interface would encourage compatibility in the recipe > format > Each package manager needn't support everything the others do, but it > would make sense for them to support the most commonly used > keywords. Also, most package authors do not include complex package > recipes in their README's for installation instructions. FWIW I am not a fan of having package authors recommending the usage of package-vc, unless the user is interested in contributing patches. The ideal usage is just to re-use the package specifications provided by the ELPA server, without having to make up something yourself. >>>> It's not that complicated. >>>> If anything, it would encourage package-manager authors to support >>>> a basic subset of keywords for the package recipe spec, increasing >>>> cross-compatibility for package recipes. >>> >>> Ah, I think I have a better idea of what you're trying to do now. >>> Essentially, provide a totally generic interface for :ensure and >>> then >>> let people decide via use-package-ensure-function which package >>> manager >>> they actually want to use? Honestly, that sounds quite reasonable >>> to me. >>> One would have to make sure that certain edge cases are handled >>> (like >>> somehow preserving a version of :vc t and keeping the current >>> functionality of :ensure in tact) but other than that I see no >>> reason >>> why something like this shouldn't be done. > > Yes, that's the general idea. > >> Wouldn't it make sense to extend the :vc keyword to support >> alternative >> package managers, instead of overloading :ensure? > > Makes less sense to do it that way. > :ensure is/was already the interface by which people ensure a package > is installed. > Let's say someone implements another tarball based elisp package > manager. > Does it make more sense to specify they'd like to use that via a :vc > (version control) keyword or :ensure? For me, the latter is clearly > the correct choice. > > As Tony mentioned use-package already has > `use-package-ensure-function' which was intended to facilitate > something like this. It's documentation also mentions: > >> It is up to the function to decide on the semantics of the various >> values for ‘:ensure’. > > The only potential for confusion is if a user decides they'd like to > use multiple package managers at once, but that's a use-case which can > cause confusion sans use-package, too. Hmm, I get this point, but I don't see a neat and safe way to extend :ensure. And we have to keep in mind, that use-package was originally made for package.el, and it was retrofitted to support other package managers later on. When considering this context, I think that privileging built-in functionality like package-vc is acceptable. >>> Just to make sure: in practice, the only package managers >>> that—right >>> now—support this schema are package.el (by means of :vc) and >>> elpaca, >>> right? >> >> To my knowledge, the only three package managers that have >> use-package >> integration are package.el, straight and elpaca (though I don't know >> how >> it looks like in the latter two cases). > > It looks like there is a package for Quelpa use-package integration > which went the route of adding > yet-another-keyword-that-is-basically-ensure: > > https://github.com/quelpa/quelpa-use-package > > They only advertise MELPA recipe compatibility. (Considering the > number of MELPA recipes VS NON/GNU ELPA recipes, it would probably be > less of a chore if GNU strove for compatibility with that format, too, > but that's a separate issue). FWIW package-vc uses the same package specification format as elpa-admin, with the explicit intention of making it easier to contribute these specifications to elpa.git/nongnu.git. > I didn't find anything similar for borg or el-get. > >> My understanding is that "No Wayman" is Nicholas Vollmer >> (https://github.com/progfolio), the >> maintainer of the latter two? > > Correct. I'm the sole author of Elpaca and co-maintain straight.el > with its original author. > >> If so, then I think we are in a wonderful position to propose that >> Straight should add :url as an alias for :repo, which could make >> this >> more uniform -- that is if we actually want to take this path. > > My opinion on a standard elisp package recipe format is to keep > keywords as general and few as possible. I'd like to eventually remove > some keywords in Elpaca which were only added for straight.el > compatibility. For example, :pre-build, :post-build, which are just > special cases of :build. > > We have thousands of recipes "in the wild", mostly in MELPA's flavor, > which should have been studied prior to adding more > keywords. Specifically, Emacs should reconsider the :make and > :shell-command keywords, which are too specific. :build is more > generic and the semantics can be determined by the package manager. Again, here we just re-use what ELPA-admin provides. Both keywords are used by ELPA packages, so we need to support them as well. Overall I am not that convinced that there is a worthwhile advantage in trying to unify these keywords. I don't understand why package authors feel the need to specify separate installation instructions for different packages to begin with, so I am lacking the motivation behind the problem to begin with. -- Philip Kaludercic on peregrine
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