Re: Summary and next steps for (package-initialize)

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

> My take on this, after reading the discussions kindly pointed to by
> Mark, is that your proposal will replace one problematic situation
> with another.

Agreed. Drew has already explained why the new situation is also
problematic.

> Whether the new situation will be better than the current one is
> arguable,

I've already explained in my email starting this thread why I think
the new situation will be better than the current one. If you
disagree, please tell me why.

> I don't think it will be significantly better.

Can you provide justification for this? Such justification would take
the form of explaining why the advantages I listed are not valid, or
there are disadvantages that I missed.

> I myself cannot say I like the idea of Emacs creating an init file
> in the user's home directory.

Do you like the idea of Emacs modifying the user's init-file
automatically, even if it already exists? If not, then do you agree
that my proposal at least reduces the problem?

> Already a few people said they were unhappy with such a solution.

But did they say they were less unhappy with the current solution?
Drew certainly didn't.

> I think we should instead explore the possibility that
> package-initialize will be called only in startup.el. That solution
> came up during the discussions, but AFAICT was dismissed almost
> without any serious consideration. The issues raised against it
> could probably be solved by splitting the package initialization in
> two, one part before, the other after the user's init file is read.

Can you please elaborate on exactly how this would work, so that we
can make an informed comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of
the proposals?