Re: [PATCH] better citizen gnuplot emacs mode

[Jon O. <jon...@gm...>]

Sorry all -- my earlier message to this thread was rejected for not being from my old address.

Bruce offered to set up the github repository for gnuplot-mode last year after I submitted a couple of patches. Since then I have hacked on it a bit, but haven't had time to put together anything that could be called a release. AFAIK the versions in gnuplot CVS and on Bruce's home page are the most recent official versions.

The code in the github devel branch (https://github.com/bruceravel/gnuplot-mode/tree/devel) should be stable enough to go in a new release. Apart from bugfixes, I've tried to make my additions not get in the way, so that people who don't want them can ignore them. There are some backward incompatibilities which I will fix. It would be good to be able to maintain backwards support at least for GNU Emacs 22 (from 2007; the current version is 24). I guess it should try to support XEmacs too, though that seems likely to become increasingly difficult as XEmacs development seems to have stalled.

I'm not sure of the best way to get testers for a new beta version of gnuplot-mode, since people get Emacs packages from lots of different places. How active is the gnuplot-info list?

The alternative would be to release a semi-untested version on the Emacs package sites and wait for bug reports, which seems a little shoddy. Perhaps it would be OK to upload it as "gnuplot-mode-beta", though I have never seen anyone do that.

I agree that it would be best to include any new gnuplot-mode releases back into the core gnuplot repository.

I'll also try to have a look at the code in the Debian package and see if there are any patches from there that should be merged into the main repository.

Jon


> I was unaware of any recent development being done on gnuplot-mode.  
> Bruce Ravel's old site here at UW no longer exists.  I am not an emacs 
> user and know essentially nothing about how well or poorly the old 
> gnuplot-mode code has kept up with emacs development.  I'm just the guy
> trying to keep gnuplot distribution itself up to date.  
> 
> So yeah, if the gnuplot-mode stuff is being maintained and distributed 
> elsewhere then I'm fine with removing it from the gnuplot distribution per se.  
> On the other hand, gnuplot distribution from the project repository has
> been consistent going back at least 12 years, whereas separate distribution
> of the gnuplot-mode scripts outside of gnuplot has been mostly stagnent over 
> that period.  
> 
> I'll CC Bruce to see if he has any opinion or any interest in getting back 
> in the loop.
> 
> 	Ethan