Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:

>> No don't worry, helm will work in any cases, thanks.
>
> OK, in that case I'd prefer to keep it the way it is.

Ok, fair enough.

>>> Mainly to avoid issues with packages that might place files in the
>>> configuration directory, which might hinder the reproduction of bugs.
>>
>> Hmm, maybe, I don't have an example in mind though.
>
> It might not be the best example, but my package autocrypt generates a
> file in the `user-emacs-directory'.  If we don't use --init-directory,
> the existing file would be re-used.

Ok, for such case it is easy to either rename the file temporarily to
foo_ori or foo_save or to set the variable handling the file (generally
it is not harcoded) to something else. But another issue is if your
isolated package needs the history file or tramp file or whatever file
~/.emacs.d is handling; e.g. a package providing completion on history.
I still think it is more handy to reuse user-emacs-directory and its
elpa directory where the packages are already installed.

-- 
Thierry