Load-path woes (was: Re: New DFSG-compliant emacs packages)
I'd like to draw attention to some serious load-path issues, as I
believe that David makes correct observations.
David Kastrup wrote:
> [...] It is not sensibly possible to
> install, say, your own up-to-date version of AUCTeX from a source ball
> and install it into a local tree, in particular if there is a system
> AUCTeX present already. This works neither on Emacs, nor on XEmacs.
> So it is broken. None of the active Emacs or XEmacs developers admits
> to understanding the system. So it is a mess. [...]
I'm afraid even the Debian maintainers do not understand it, because
load-path is _really_ broken in Debian Emacsen. The add-on packages'
directories are supposed to come after the site-specific directories
under /usr/local according to section 9 of the Emacs Policy, but in
reality it's the other way around. :-( I reported this back in March
but did not get replies.
> I explain how to diagnose the problems, I explain that the load-path
> must not be split among compiled and source Elisp files. I make
> proposals to do this rather with symlinks.
That would make sense, IMHO. Actually, the emacs-goodies-el package
already does this. It would also solve the problem that some packages
do not add the source files' directory to the load-path, breaking
hyperlinks in *Help* buffers.
Reply to: