Re: A proposal for removing obsolete packages

[Phillip Lord]

Andrew Hyatt <address@hidden> writes:

> address@hidden (Phillip Lord) writes:
>
>> Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:
>>>   > Also, can you give an example of something that is obsolete but
>>>   > shouldn't be removed?  That might help me understand your concern.
>>>
>>> defadvice might be a good example.
>>
>> Perhaps we need an intermediate directory, called "deprecated". Not
>> obsolete, should probably still autoload -- putting defadvice into
>> obsolete will break some packages for this reason alone, but should
>> produce warnings.
>>
>> The intention would be that "deprecated" packages would move to
>> "obsolete" there after.
>
> What would the difference be between deprecated and obsolete, then?  Is
> it just that obsolete would definitely be deleted and deprecated only
> might be?


Autoloads. Obsolete does not autoload. So, for example,

M-x longlines-mode

does not work in current emacs. You need to do

M-x load-library   longlines-mode

first. So, for example, making advice.el obsolete would break package
using defadvice unless advice.el were forceably loaded somewhere.

Phil