Re: doc of defining minor modes

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> If it does not already have a value when the library is loaded, then the
> library can set the (default) value to on or off, as appropriate. If on is
> inappropriate for some particular library for some reason, then its
> :init-value should be nil.

> Please provide a specific scenario of the problem you see - I'm not getting
> this.

Elisp packages may be loaded because the user specifically wants it to be
loaded, but they can also be loaded for all kinds of other
unrelated reasons.  So as a matter of principle the user-visible behavior of
Emacs should be mostly unchanged by (load <foo>).

This often means that minor modes should default to being disabled.

Not always, tho: E.g. foo-aux-mode could default to being enabled without
any harm if it only ever affects buffers in foo-mode and foo-mode can't
exist without foo-aux-mode also existing (e.g. because they're defined in the
same file of because foo.el requires `foo-aux').


        Stefan