Re: feature/package+vc 04c4c578c7 3/4: Allow for packages to be installed directly from VCS

[Philip Kaludercic]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> Philip Kaludercic [2022-10-19 07:08:34] wrote:
>> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>>>> I have pushed a first draft and it appears to work.  It doesn't yet
>>>> handle all attribute (such as :doc), but that should be doable when I
>>>> find the time.
>>> Side note: installing packages from Git (like what you're implementing
>>> in the `package+vc` branch) is already one of the functionalities
>>> supported by `elpa-admin.el` so it would be good to try and share/reuse
>>> that code as much as possible.
>> That is only possible insofar I don't have to rely on Git features,
>> since package-vc intends to be VC-generic.
>
> I'm thinking of things like the code that handles `:doc` or `:make`.
> These don't care about Git.
>
> I don't think that the code in `elpa-admin.el` can be used as-is, but it
> would be good to try and change them in tandem (maybe by extracting the
> common code into some new file?).

The only thing is that we will probably need to prompt the user if they
are OK with executing some command or using Makefile, right?  I can try
to re-use elpa-admin.el but the code will then have to be wrapped for
"regular" use by some safety precautions.

>>> Actually part of `elpa-admin.el` might also be helpful for the
>>> ELPA-bundling feature.
>>> So we should move more of `elpa-admin.el` into Emacs's own code.
>> As part of `package-vc' or as a new module?
>
> I think either way is fine.  The whole `elpa-admin.el` contains things
> that are irrelevant to Emacs itself, so we'll likely keep a separate
> file like that, but the code that's useful for other uses
> (i.e. package-vc and/or bundled-ELPA) should be moved out (tho
> elpa-admin.el has to be backward compatible to some extent, so we'll
> have to keep a "local" copy of whatever is moved to a common file
> hosted in emacs.git, at least for a few years).

Sounds good.  I'll first try and see if the code can be added to
package-vc.