Re: Package initialization

[Helmut Eller]

On Mon, Jul 20 2015, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

>  > Calling it lazily when a SLIME related command is invoked the
>  > first time would kinda work for SLIME, but it would be rather strange
>  > that say the slime-connect command implicitly adds hooks to
>  > lisp-mode-hook.
>
> Why is that stranger than saying that slime-setup implicitly adds
> hooks to lisp-mode-hook?  Or stranger than saying that simply
> installing the SLIME package on your system implicitly adds hooks to
> lisp-mode-hook?

Because slime-connect is supposed to create a connection to an external
process.  Not mess around in with some mode-hooks and minor-modes.

>  > In general, lazy initialization would also not work well if those
>  > autoloaded commands should be bound to keys because before the
>  > first invocation the keys would not be bound.
>
> Why would you expect them to be bound?  The existence of a package
> doesn't necessarily mean that the user wants it invoked at startup.
> If the user does want those keys bound, I don't see why it's a problem
> to have the user put a call to slime-setup in .emacs, or put it on
> lisp-mode-hook itself.
>
> If users really object to that, well, you're right -- the XEmacs
> policy would not satisfy their requirements.  But in a setup where
> package installation implies package initialization, putting a call to
> slime-setup in .emacs looks quite silly.

package.el seems to be so designed that package installation implies
package initialization.  I don't like that but I can't change it.

Helmut