Re: [ELPA] Maintaining multiple packages in the same repo, branch, and worktree

[Stefan Monnier]

> Despite the unwieldy list of :ignored-files in the elpa-packages file,
> this is how Magit and Magit Section are packaged in NonGNU ELPA: they
> come from the same repo, branch, and worktree, and their "recipes" are
> configured appropriately.

Indeed, that's how Magit does it currently, which sucks for users who
install those packages directly from the Git rather than via
the tarballs.
[ It also makes for spurious extra messages in the cron logs and
  elpa-diffs.  ]

I accepted it because it was complicated for Magit to change that.

I think it could be made acceptable more generally (which would also be
appreciated for ivy/avy/swiper) by improving `elpa-admin.el` the way
Jonas suggests: allow a package to specify explicitly that it (re)uses
the same files as some other package.  Then `elpa-admin.el` could setup
`.../elpa/packages/<pkg>` as a symlink to the other package and it could
skip the package when performing operations that
are redundant (e.g. sync'ing).

We'd still get some downsides (e.g. all the packages sharing the same
source code would still end up being duplicated in the `load-path` when
installed from Git), but I think it would be tolerable.

> If improvements need to be made to that process, maybe we could
> discuss making them.

Yes, I think the changes to `elpa-admin.el` wouldn't be too complex.


        Stefan