path: root/2021/captions/emacsconf-2021-borg--manual-package-management-in-the-era-of-repositories-why-and-how--codingquark--main.vtt

WEBVTT

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Hello, my name is Dhavan, 

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also known as codingquark!

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I started out learning Emacs 

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without knowing I had to plug things in

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to make it work.

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Eventually I had to learn to set up ELPA.

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Since then I’ve used MELPA 

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and Debian apt sources.

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Recent discussions about ELPA, 

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NonGNU ELPA, MELPA, etc. 

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made me reconsider 

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what I was doing 

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with my Emacs.

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I am not the kind of person

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to mindlessly ram things into my emacs.

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I like to ponder, 

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to understand, 

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to have a level of control 

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and mindfulness 

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about my Emacs.

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It is not just a matter 

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of trying things out,

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it is about living an examined life 

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as the Greeks would say; 

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or sutta as Buddhists would say.

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Such an Emacs is an Emacs worth having.

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This pursuit of mine 

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brought me to learn about borg.

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And I am going to share with you

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how to use it.

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I believe the approach of using borg 

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for package management 

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is not for everyone.

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It involves knowing git, 

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it involves looking into source code 

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and reading makefiles.

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Sure, anyone can learn 

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should they be motivated so, 

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but people have different priorities.

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This is what is working for me right now.

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Here is what we are going to do.

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We'll set up Debian, install dependencies,

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set up borg, install a package,

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and make sure it installs all the docs.

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Let’s get started!

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Would it not be amazing 

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if we could start out with

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just Debian and basic tools?

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For borg, we need git, 

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build-essential, 

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and something to build docs.

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Nothing more!

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Now that we have the OS setup, 

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it is time to clone 

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what is called a “seed”.

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A seed will speed our process up 

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by providing things like

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magit, epkg, auto-compile, etc.

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We will soon be using epkg and magit.

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The docs cover how to start 

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without a seed, 

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but for the purposes of a short demo, 

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seeds are better.

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I started with a seed 

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for my own dot emacs. 

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It is fairly slim.

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As you can see, 

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borg uses git URLs 

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and /not/ HTTPS URLs.

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Make sure you have your ssh keys 

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set up on GitHub, GitLab, etc.

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Bootstrapping is like cloning a dot emacs,

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but it only comes with a

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useful dot git submodules file.

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We get a Makefile that has targets

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like help and bootstrap-borg.

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There will be more targets 

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after we finish the bootstrapping process. 

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Then, we need to clone all the git modules, 

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which is also done by a make target.

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This time, it will not just pull 

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the git submodules,

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but will also run various things 

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like auto-compilation, 

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Info doc installation, etc.

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Good thing we installed texinfo earlier!

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Now that we have borg bootstrapped, 

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let’s see how to “assimilate” a drone.

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Well, that’s just a borg way of saying 

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how to install a new package.

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We get to work from inside Emacs now.

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Borg has excellent info docs, 

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should you ever be having questions.

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I earlier talked about using a seed.

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Borg docs go into details of what that means.

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I encourage you to read the docs.

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Let’s try to install lsp-mode.

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Examining lsp-mode 

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with epkg’s helper function, 

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we can see details of the package,

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dependencies required, and so on.

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epkg uses sqlite database.

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Now you know why I installed sqlite

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in the OS preparation step!

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Well, lsp-mode has 

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way too many dependencies

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for this demo.

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Note how one is naturally led 

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to take a peek at the innards of the packages 

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in this simple workflow.

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As I said, it is about being mindful!

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Okay, instead of lsp-mode, 

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let’s take a look at 

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Prot’s excellent modus-themes.

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No extra dependencies needed. 

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That is perfect!

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The themes have great docs 

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and our philosopher friend 

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is good at writing.

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Alright, first, we clone the package.

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This allows us to inspect the code,

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should we want to.

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Well, you /should/.

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Upon inspecting the code, 

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we ask borg to assimilate the package.

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This will load the code in our Emacs 

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and make the package available for use.

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Wait, I was praising all the docs, 

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but where are they?

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To install the docs, 

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we need to instruct borg 

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about where to find them.

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To do this, we edit the gitmodules file 

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and add the details.

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There they are!

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We have our docs!

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Alright, we have assimilated a package.

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After sufficient testing, 

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we can commit it as a part of our own dot emacs,

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which is a drone of our borg collective. 

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Since all the packages are git submodules, 

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we get to use magit 

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(all hail magit!) 

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and borg’s helper functions 

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to commit the code.

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Now create your own dot el file 

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and hack away!

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So that is it.

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I hope you enjoyed the talk

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and I will be hanging out in IRC

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if you have any questions.

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Thank you, and bye.