Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>
> > It is a defcustom (a user option), but:
> > 1. It's ineffective when set from the custom interface, since it has
> > to be in the early init file.  Right?
>
> I guess it can still be effective if you load your custom-file from
> early-init.el, but indeed it's rather unlikely to be effective in
> Emacs≥27.

My guess would be that this will continue to be an unusual setup.

> > 2. It is a user option, but gets set automatically by
> > package-initialize.  This makes it a bit confusing, because
> > describe-variable says:
>
> Indeed, and this problem already existed before.
>
> > Would this be better as a defvar instead?
>
> I think you're right.

I started looking into package-enabe-at-startup, and of course the
above reasoning goes for package-load-list and package-user-dir; that
is, setting them via customize has no effect.  I see two alternatives:

1. Make sure that you can set all three via customize.
2. Make all three into defvars.

I'm not sure if option 1 is either practical or clean, so I'd lean
towards option 2, I think.  I'd be interested to hear what other
people think about it.

Meanwhile, the attached patch makes us not change the value of
package-enable-at-startup by introducing a new variable.  Any
comments?

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas