Re: pkg-autoloads.el vs. pkg-loaddefs.el

[Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> I have seen configs with package-activate-all being not the first thing
>> in the config.
>> Some configs even do package loading in early-init.
>
> I currently consider these cases to be "the user's mistake".

This is a very common mistake.
I'd assert more - most users are not aware about the intricacies we are
talking about here. They just copy-paste the code from web and get
cryptic errors (and the errors from mixed installations are especially
cryptic). And they do not want to know these details (or, at least, do
not know where to search).

And the worst thing is that mixed installation problem often manifests
itself only between major releases and things "work fine" most of the
time. This frustrates people a lot.

> Maybe we should provide some alternative for "late activation" which
> does pass the `reload` argument?

Maybe. Although I am afraid that having multiple ways to activate
packages will only confuse people who struggle from the problem most.

> We don't do that by default in an effort to try and keep startup time
> under control and also because reloading is a hack which works only
> partly and can even have unpredictable effects, so it's really much
> better to try and avoid it in the first place.

May an approach like `require-with-check' be used here? Then, the
reloading only occurs when there is a potential mixing of package
versions.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
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