Re: package.el can't install a circular depend and it should be able to.

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Tom Tromey writes:
 > >>>>> "Stefan" == Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> writes:
 > 
 > Tom> It was intended to do a topological sort of the graph and activate
 > Tom> packages from the bottom up.  If this isn't working then there is a bug.
 > 
 > Stefan> Do we actually need such a topological sort?  I mean the only
 > Stefan> place where ordering might matter is when loading the autoloads
 > Stefan> file, AFAICT (for all other steps like download, unpack, compile
 > Stefan> the order in which packages are processed doesn't matter).
 > 
 > I thought byte-compiling one package could require that package's
 > dependencies, say via eval-when-compile.

Yes.  But this only matters for macros (and defsubsts).  So if you
have downloaded those dependencies and installed their (uncompiled)
Lisp where the installing Emacs can find them, you're gold.  What you
need is a list of dependencies, and to install all .els.  It's
possible to optimize a bit (eg, in most cases XEmacs is able to pre-
compile autoloads and such regardless of dependencies, which speeds up
"make World" somewhat).

15-years-of-XEmacs-experience-says-so-ly y'rs,

Steve