Oh I see. I think that I've actually misunderstood the use-package code and
that's precisely the behavior they're going for: they want to install the
package immediately not when use-package is being byte-compiled, but when
it is being used from any file that is being byte-compiled. So it works for
them, but it's not the behavior we want here.

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 5:11 PM Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
wrote:

> > (message
> >  (eval-when-compile
> >    (if (bound-and-true-p byte-compile-current-file)
> >        "I'm being byte-compiled!"
> >      "I'm being evaluated :(")))
>
> Let's say, this is in a file foo.el.  And let's say we have a file
> bar.el which contains:
>
>    (require 'foo)
>    ...
>
> Then byte-compiling bar.el (when foo.el has not been byte-compiled)
> will emit a message "I'm being byte-compiled!".
>
> But yes, there are other ways.  I think I remember using something like
>
>     (setq my-witness t)
>
>     (eval-when-compile
>       (message (if (bound-and-true-p my-witness)
>                    "Loading this file non-compiled"
>                  "Byte-compiling this file")))
>
>     (setq my-witness nil)
>
> in the past,
>
>
>         Stefan
>
>
>