3.2 The Library Maintainer View

From the library maintainer’s viewpoint, the advantages to the XEmacs Packaging System stem from the convenience to the user of installation and upgrade. Since an installed package automatically registers its entry points via autoload and its configuration variables with the Customize system, configuration FAQs are reduced. When it’s easy to upgrade, users learn to try ‘Tools | Packages | Update Installed Packages’ before posting a FAQ whose answer is “long since fixed, please upgrade.”

This comes at some cost, as the library maintainer needs to arrange that the package be installed in a directory structure that satisfies the requirements of the XEmacs Packaging System. Autoload cookies and defcustoms must also be added to existing libraries. The XEmacs Packaging System provides infrastructure to assure that all of these annoyances need only be dealt with once. The autoload cookies and defcustoms are beyond the scope of this chapter, but most maintainers of modern packages are already familiar with these mechanisms.

The XEmacs Packaging System may be divided into the infrastructure common to all packages, and the package-specific control files. The infrastructure supports global builds, installation, and generation of the “sumo” bundles of packages, as well as generation of individual packages. The package control files describe the structure of the package’s source tree and provide administrative information.