Echo Area

I've been very resistant to looking at Cask. I felt that, much like for example el-get, it was trying to re-solve a problem that has been solved by ELPA since Emacs v24 in a way incompatible with ELPA.

I have finally looked at it, and to my pleasant surprise it works with ELPA instead of beside it, as a wrapper adding some extra functionality. Using and supporting Cask doesn't mean you don't support ELPA. And theoretically using Cask does open up possibilities for development by creating separate development environments (package wise), though I haven't tried this out yet.

I've switched over my configuration to using Cask, which will also help me keep the configuration on my laptop synchronized more easily.

Aside from a fairly long Cask file, making it work is pretty simple, as the website suggests.

(eval-and-compile
  (require 'cask "~/projects/ext/cask/cask.el")
  (cask-initialize))

I add an eval-and-compile so the external process compiling my init.el doesn't complain about not being able to load ELPA-installed packages.

Now instead of starting up Emacs, running M-x list-packages, pressing U and then X (and y at least once) it's a matter of

cd ~/.emacs.d
cask update

Much easier.