[AUCTeX] AUCTeX building and packaging

[Sebastian Wiesner]

Hello,

I've tried to package the Emacs Lisp part of auctex for MELPA [1] to
provide users with CVS snapshots via "package-install".  However, it
turned out that I cannot actually just copy the "*.el" files into a
package, because auctex patches some of these during "./configure",
most importantly "tex-site.el". As far as I can see this puts the
version number and various hard-coded installation directories into
"tex-site.el".  Is there a reason for this?  Couldn't the version
number be embedded directly, and the hard-coded path be replaced with
dynamic lookups based on "load-file-name"?  Did I miss the obvious?

I understand that autotools and make is needed for the LaTeX side of
preview, but I wonder if it is really necessary for the Emacs Lisp
side of Auctex.  It reduce complexity and ease development and
installation of auctex, if the Emacs Lisp part along with its
resources could just be copied to an arbitrary directory without make,
or be used directly by simply appending the CVS checkout to
"load-path".

Sebastian Wiesner

[1] http://melpa.milkbox.net/