bug#31397: 27.0.50; Emacs doesn't call package-initialize if there's no elpa directory

[Noam Postavsky <npostavs@gmail.com>]

Radon Rosborough <radon.neon@gmail.com> writes:

> Thanks for the cc. I wasn't aware of this bug report.
>
> The behavior makes sense, but is definitely undesirable. There are at
> least two solutions:
>
> 1. Make `package-installed-p' and other functions automatically
>    initialize package.el if necessary.
>
> 2. Call `package-initialize' unconditionally during startup.
>
> Solution (1) might make package.el functions a little slower.

I don't think speed is an issue here.  For package-installed-p in
particular, it would have no effect on speed since that function already
checks package--initialized (and checking a single variable is pretty
negligible already).

> Solution (1) seems like the correct way to do this. Is there any
> reason it wasn't done already?

Not sure, I might guess that a predicate like package-installed-p
shouldn't have side-effects, but package-install doesn't auto-initialize
either when called non-interactively.

Stefan, do you have any insight on this?