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POWhat do you expect from a package manager for Emacs?
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copied!<p>Although several thousand Emacs Lisp libraries exist, GNU Emacs, until version 24.1 did not have an (internal) package manager.</p> <p>I guess that most users would agree that it is currently rather inconvenient to find, install and especially keep up-to-date Emacs Lisp libraries.</p> <p><strong>Pages that make life a bit easier</strong></p> <p>For versions of Emacs older than 24.1:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/sje30/emacs/ell.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Emacs Lisp List</a> - Problem: I see dead people (links).</li> <li><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Emacswiki</a> - Problem: May contain traces of nuts (malicious code).</li> <li><a href="http://github.com/emacsmirror/p/wiki" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Emacsmirror</a> - The package repository I am working on. Problem: No package manager supports it natively yet.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Some package managers</strong></p> <p>It's not that nobody has tried yet. (Some of these did not exist when this question was asked.)</p> <ul> <li><strong><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AutoInstall" rel="nofollow noreferrer">auto-install</a></strong></li> <li><strong><a href="https://github.com/emacscollective/borg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">borg.el</a></strong> - Assimilate Emacs packages using Git submodules.</li> <li><strong><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/el-get.el" rel="nofollow noreferrer">el-get.el</a></strong> - Supports many sources.</li> <li><a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/elinstall.git" rel="nofollow noreferrer">elinstall.el</a></li> <li><strong><a href="http://github.com/jaalto/project--emacs-epackage" rel="nofollow noreferrer">epackage</a></strong> aka DELPS - Debian packaging concepts applied to Emacs Lisp packages.</li> <li><a href="http://gitlab.com/tarsius/epkg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">epkg.el</a> - This is now just a tool for browsing the Emacsmirror.</li> <li><a href="http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~monnier/elisp/install.el" rel="nofollow noreferrer">install.el</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/install-elisp.el" rel="nofollow noreferrer">install-elisp.el</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.jemarch.net/jempkg.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">jem-pkg.el</a></li> <li><strong><a href="http://tromey.com/elpa/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">package.el</a></strong> - ELPA. Seems like it will be included in Emacs 24.</li> </ul> <hr> <p><strong><em>UPDATE -- package.el is included in GNU Emacs, starting with version 24.1</em></strong></p> <hr> <ul> <li><a href="https://launchpad.net/pases" rel="nofollow noreferrer">pases.el</a></li> <li><a href="http://github.com/eggcaker/pelm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">pelm</a> - Command line installer; using php.</li> <li><a href="http://gmarceau.qc.ca/plugin.el" rel="nofollow noreferrer">plugin.el</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el" rel="nofollow noreferrer">straight.el</a> - Recent and experimental, has not reached 1.0 release yet.</li> <li><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/UsePackage" rel="nofollow noreferrer">use-package.el</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.xemacs.org/Documentation/packageGuide.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">XEmacs package manager</a></li> </ul> <p>package has been included in the Emacs trunk. epkg is not ready yet and also currently not available. At least install-elisp, plugin and use-package do not seem to be actively maintained anymore.</p> <p>I have created a git <a href="https://github.com/emacsmirror/all-package-managers" rel="nofollow noreferrer">repository</a> containing all these package managers as submodules.</p> <p><strong>Some utilities that might be useful</strong></p> <p>Package managers could use these utilities and/or they could be used to maintain a mirror of packages.</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/date-calc.el" rel="nofollow noreferrer">date-calc.el</a> - Date calculation and parsing routines.</li> <li><a href="http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/sje30/emacs/ell.el" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ell.el</a> - Browse the Emacs Lisp List.</li> <li><a href="http://github.com/tarsius/elm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">elm.el</a>, <a href="http://github.com/tarsius/elx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">elx.el</a>, <a href="http://github.com/tarsius/xpkg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">xpkg.el</a> - Used to maintain the <a href="http://www.emacsmirror.org" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Emacsmirror</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://www.gnufans.net/~deego/emacspub/lisp-mine/genauto/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">genauto.el</a> - Helps generate autoloads for your elisp packages.</li> <li><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/InVersion" rel="nofollow noreferrer">inversion.el</a> - Require specific package versions.</li> <li><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/LibraryDependencies" rel="nofollow noreferrer">loadhist.el, lib-requires.el, elisp-depend.el</a> - Commands to list Emacs Lisp library dependencies.</li> <li><a href="http://www.shellarchive.co.uk/content/lisp/project-root.el" rel="nofollow noreferrer">project-root.el</a> - Define a project root and take actions based upon it.</li> <li><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/strptime.el" rel="nofollow noreferrer">strptime.el</a> - Partial implementation of POSIX date and time parsing.</li> <li><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-en/wikirel.el" rel="nofollow noreferrer">wikirel.el</a> - Visit relevant pages on the Emacs Wiki.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Discussions about the subject at hand</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/101927" rel="nofollow noreferrer">emacs-devel 20080801</a></li> <li><a href="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.emacs/browse_thread/thread/696d4ba8809ff258" rel="nofollow noreferrer">comp.emacs 20021121</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/RationalElispPackaging" rel="nofollow noreferrer">RationalElispPackaging</a></li> </ul> <p><strong>The question (finally)</strong></p> <p>So - I would like to know from you what you consider important/unimportant/supplementary etc. in a package manager for Emacs.</p> <p><strong><em>Some ideas</em></strong></p> <ol> <li>Many packages (the <a href="http://www.emacsmirror.org" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Emacsmirror</a> provides that largest available collection of packages, but there is no explicit support in any package manager yet).</li> <li>Only packages that have been tested.</li> <li>Support for more than one package archive (so people can choose between many/tested packages).</li> <li>Dependency calculated based on required features only.</li> <li>Dependencies take particular versions into account.</li> <li>Only use versions that have been released upstream.</li> <li>Use versions from version control systems if available.</li> <li>Packages are categorized.</li> <li>Packages can be uninstalled and updated not only installed.</li> <li>Support creating fork of upstream version of packages.</li> <li>Support publishing these forks.</li> <li>Support choosing a fork.</li> <li>After installation packages are activated.</li> <li>Generate autoload files.</li> <li>Integration with Emacswiki (see wikirel.el).</li> <li>Users can tag, comment etc. packages and share that information.</li> <li>Only FSF-assigned/GPL/FOSS software or don't care about license.</li> <li>Package manager should be integrated be distributed with Emacs.</li> <li>Support for easily contacting author.</li> <li>Lots of metadata.</li> <li>Suggest alternatives before installing a particular package.</li> </ol> <p><strong><em>I am hoping for these kinds of answers</em></strong></p> <ul> <li>Pointers to more implementations, discussions etc.</li> <li>Lengthy descriptions of a set of features that make up your ideal package manager.</li> <li>Descriptions of one particular desired/undesired feature. Feel free to elaborate on my ideas from above.</li> <li>Surprise me.</li> </ul>

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