Re: [PATCH] Only signal package.el warnings when needed

[Radon Rosborough <radon.neon@gmail.com>]

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> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Date: Jan 15, 2019, 10:19 AM
>
> I'm saying that we should hear the complaints first and devise the
> solution only after that.

If we wait until Emacs 27.2 to fix the complaints, then it will
already be too late to do anything useful, since everyone will have
already suffered and changed their init-files. The inconvenience is a
one-time occurrence, so fixing it after the fact will do nothing. It
is like seeing a building about to catch fire, and deciding to wait
until after it's burned down to bring in the fire trucks.

I view the current situation as quite unacceptable: the most prominent
result on Google when you search for the warning message suggests the
following:

(unless package--initialized (package-initialize t))

That means when Emacs 27 is released we're going to see this code show
up in everybody's init-files (upgrade -> "what's this weird warning?"
-> Google -> copy/paste -> "oh good, it's gone now"). I don't think
that's acceptable, because `package--initialized' is an internal
variable which should not be referenced in user code.

Even if we fix the problem in Emacs 27.2, that won't help to get these
references to `package--initialize' out of people's init-files.
Deciding not to merge this patch or something similar will create a
massive amount of technical debt in places we can't touch (everyone's
Emacs configurations).

Best,
Radon

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