Raman -
I agree that Debian has its own ways of doing things. Usually, the
object is to "do the right thing", maintain maximum flexibility for
the local sysadmin, and minimize his workload. In that order.
In this case, the Debian policy allows a sysadmin to install and even
run several flavors of emacs (e.g. emacs20, emacs21, and xemacs21) at
the same time, while ensuring that when any emacs loads compiled lisp
files for an add-on package like emacspeak, it gets files compiled by
that version and flavor. (I believe that other Linux distributions,
and other Unixes for that matter, depend on compiled lisp files being
compatible across flavors and versions.) One implication is that when
an add-on package is installed or upgraded, it must be compiled by
each installed flavor of emacs. Of course, the files compiled by each
flavor have to be put in separate directories. (I suppose one could
leave a copy of the source files in each of those directories, but I
don't see the point of that.)
I admit that implementing this policy requires a lot of machinery
that is hard to keep in working order.
- Jim Van Zandt
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 14:36:33 -0800
To: "James R. Van Zandt" <jrv@vanzandt.mv.com>
Cc: Hans Zoebelein <hzo@gmx.de>, blinux-announce@redhat.com,
emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu, Gregory Rosmaita <oedipus@leb.net>,
oedipus@hicom.net, "Dm. Paduchih" <paduch@imm.uran.ru>
Subject: Debian package emacspeak_15-3.deb
In-Reply-To: <m16jo30-00017oC@vanzandt.mv.com>
References: <m16jo30-00017oC@vanzandt.mv.com>
X-Mailer: VM 6.84 under Emacs 20.6.1
From: "T. V. Raman" <raman@cs.cornell.edu>
Reply-to: raman@cs.cornell.edu
Is there a good reason why you're moving the compiled .elc
files out of the install directory?
This is why your previous package broke--
it's also different than how other Linuxuns install emacs.
If there is something more here than Debian wanting to be
different one would like to know:-)>>>>> "James" == James R Van Zandt <jrv@vanzandt.mv.com> writes:
James> I am uploading a new Debian package for emacspeak
James> 15. I have changed the load-path settings, so
James> the compiled version appears before the source.
James> This should speed both startup and operation.
...