Split package add/remove management and personal config management

[lld2001]

Like doom-emacs, which seperate package add/remove management from whole .emacs.d config management. I think that's because add/remove package is not so frequently. Doom-emacs will generate a big autoloads.el file when changing packages.

Could borg make the same improvement ? Because it can speed up startup time especially in Windows(forking git process is very slow)?

[tarsius]

Years before I published borg it used to do that for a while, but I removed it because I felt it only complicated matters. Once could no longer just remove a submodule manually but had to always use borg-remove because otherwise the obsolete autoload definitions would not get cleaned out. I also checked what the competition did; el-get used a single autoloads file, but package also used one per package, making it easier to go with that approach. I believe this is still the case.

I don't plan to implement this any time soon if ever. But you could implement a command that removes the per-package autoload files and instead generates a single file. You of course have to remember that command when appropriate (though forgetting to do so would not be a big deal, then those per-package autoload files would just also get loaded). And you would have to load the big autoload file explicitly in your init file.

(forking git process is very slow)

Luckily loading the autoload files doesn't involve calling git, so the only slow down is due to having to open N files instead of one.

[lld2001]

Once could no longer just remove a submodule manually but had to always use borg-remove

I found both methods lead to modifying the .gitmodules file. So it may use this fact when run borg-initialize. I think that it can compare the timestamp of the .gitmodules and the big autoloads file, and then decide whether to regenerate the big autoloads file or simply load it.

Luckily loading the autoload files doesn't involve calling git, so the only slow down is due to having to open N files instead of one.

Sorry for this. I actually mean borg-initialize calling git process many times. If the big autoloads file can achieve the same task as the borg-initialize function. Then the normal process of loading packages may not depend on git process. Some task of the borg-initialize function may be replaced by big autoloads file.

I eagerly need this because there's an extra problem. I have an offline computer which need frequently to sync configuration with the other online computer(can connect to Internet). Right now, I have to maintain a backup of .emacs.d which is the same as the offline computer. When I add/remove packages in online computer, I have to compare the changes in .git directory. This process involves many trivial details.

[lld2001]

I've made this single autoloads method work by the following snippets. Using these codes to replace simply borg-initialize, it will generate a big autoload file in the first time. Then the following startup of Emacs can load this file instead of borg-initialize. Which will gain a minor speedup and reduce the git process call in borg-initialize.

(eval-and-compile ; `borg'
  (add-to-list 'load-path (expand-file-name "lib/borg" user-emacs-directory))
  (require 'borg)

  (defun lld-collect-autoloads (file)
    "insert all enabled drone's autoloads file to a single file."
    (make-directory (file-name-directory file) 'parents)
    (condition-case-unless-debug e
        (with-temp-file file
          (setq-local coding-system-for-write 'utf-8)
          (let ((standard-output (current-buffer))
                (print-quoted t)
                (print-level nil)
                (print-length nil)
                path lpath auto)
            (insert ";; -*- lexical-binding: t; coding: utf-8; no-native-compile: t -*-\n"
                    ";; This file is generated from enabled drones.\n")
            (prin1 `(set `load-path ',load-path))
            (insert "\n")
            (print `(set `custom-theme-load-path ',custom-theme-load-path))
            (insert "\n")

            ;; insert all drone's autoloads.el to this file
            (dolist (drone (nreverse (borg-drones 'raw)))
              (setq path (car (plist-get (cdr drone) 'path)))
              (setq drone-path (concat borg-top-level-directory path))
              (when (file-exists-p drone-path)
                (setq auto (car(directory-files drone-path t ".*-autoloads.el\\'")))
                (when (and auto
                           (file-exists-p auto))
                  (insert-file-contents auto))))t))
      (error (delete-file file)
             (signal 'collect-autoload-error (list file e)))))

  (defvar single-autoload-path "~/.emacs.d/etc/borg/autoload/" "single autoload file.")
  (let ((file (concat single-autoload-path
                      "autoload-"
                      (format-time-string
                       "%+4Y%m%d-%H%M%S"
                       (file-attribute-modification-time
                        (file-attributes borg-gitmodules-file)))
                      ".el")))
    (if (file-exists-p file)
        (load file)
      (borg-initialize)
      (lld-collect-autoloads file))))