[Proposal] Remove packs/stable from the repo

[arichiardi]

I have been pondering a lot about the benefits of having packs/stable committed every time.

While it is true that you want to have a stable system, it is a bit like duplicating what is already achieved by committing packs/dev. But packs/stable can always be generated from packs/dev/update-live-packs and I am wondering if there is any other reason I am missing for both to be in the repo.

In my branch I removed it and ignored it and working with git commit and git stash has improved 10 fold.

So my proposal is to remove it as well (or tell me a compelling reason why it is necessary).

Also @samaaron, together with this proposal I would like to ask whether you are contemplating adding maintainers to this wonderful project, which is a bit behind Prelude in terms of updates (btw see my PR for cider 0.13.0) and would really benefit from it.

Thanks a lot!

[rothmichaels]

I can't speak for @samaaron, but here are the two reasons I realized when I was pondering the same thing a couple years ago:

But packs/stable can always be generated from packs/dev/update-live-packs and I am wondering if there is any other reason I am missing for both to be in the repo.

This is not necessarily true, if any of the submodule repos are removed or if a commit is removed from the repo you will not be able to correctly checkout all the submodules (the later has happened before I think).

Also, the "stable" packs used to be called "live" packs; I'm assuming part of the motivation is to be able to clone the repo and very quickly have a stable emacs-live to begin hacking at a show or class immediately. There are a non-trivial number of sub-modules in this project.

[arichiardi]

I don't think I have considered checkouts, but still, nothing is really unsolvable and we just need some bash magic.

I was saying that because I think maintaining things like this is a bit tough, every git status is a huge list of mixed files.

Anyways, just random thoughts for improving things :)

[crimeminister]

@arichiardi I'd also like to see a maintainer or three nominated, if only to help with updating the occasional dependency, but failing that I'm evaluating forks looking for one to use as the basis for future work.

[arichiardi]

I think this conversation has not received the love it deserves 😄