Automatic package management is great. Now I just have to sit down and convert all the (quite numerous) extensions I've installed to using the package manager though :P.
This should help with keeping everything updated and going from computer to computer. My current system just has everything in a private git repository, but this isn't really ideal.
I should also probably submit the one major mode I've written. However, it's specific to a particular course taught by one professor, so nobody is going to be needing it for at least one semester :).
The way people typically do this is by VCing their configurations in a "dotfiles" repository. New machine? Pull your dotfiles, and create the symlinks in your homedir.
I currently do this with my entire .emacs.d directory, but it sounds like Derbasti only pulls his .emacs, and then has code to check for installed packages and get any that are missing.
Then everytime you installed a package it would get written into the list and everytime you moved your init it would all happen automatically.
That would be cool. And not hard to do either. You could just keep a customization variable of the "base packages" or something and have it saved by the standard custom stuff.
My init file is now much much simpler. It's easier to use customization once you're using packages. Package quality is also better than the old "install this file in your load-path somewhere" because there are established ways of doing stuff that work automatically (autoload cookies for example, I'll do another post on them sometime).
This should help with keeping everything updated and going from computer to computer. My current system just has everything in a private git repository, but this isn't really ideal.
I should also probably submit the one major mode I've written. However, it's specific to a particular course taught by one professor, so nobody is going to be needing it for at least one semester :).