Re: Option to not automatically customize-save-variable `package-selected-packages'

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 22:08:18 -0500
> From: alex <address@hidden>
> 
> > This seems to be a general complaint about package.el using Custom to
> > save the data about installed packages. I see no arguments as to why
> > it's wrong to use Custom for that.
> 
> There's two major issues that I have in this instance:
> 
> 1) The user is barely notified that the variable is being saved. In other 
> instances (such as the Customize
> interface), it's quite obvious that it's going to change your customize file. 
> Installing/upgrading packages
> changes the file with no obvious notice or prompt (as the notice gets drowned 
> out by the package
> install/upgrade/delete messages). It's also not obvious at all that your 
> customize file is going to change from
> those actions (it hasn't since these actions were created).

What would the prompt say in this case?  If it suggests not to save
the selected packages with the other customizations, and the user opts
not to save, wouldn't that mean Emacs will not know these packages
weer selected next time it starts?  If so, letting the user choose
that alternative would be a disservice, I think.

> 2) The package list for a particular user can differ between different 
> machines. This makes it annoying to
> share a config among the machine with something like git. I think this data 
> would be better suited to a separate
> place where it's easy go gitignore it, like with abbrevs, recentf and so on. 
> It's tied not only to the customization
> in the init file but also to the state of the computer itself (that is, any 
> packages installed/deleted outside of your
> init file).

As I wrote elsewhere, this could happen with any other customized
variable, and we currently don't have any solution for that except
expecting the affected users to write some Lisp to solve this.  I see
no reason yet why this particular customization is different as to
require a specialized solution just for it.  Can you tell why you
think it is different?