Re: Package initialization

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Stefan Monnier writes:

 > >> The important aspect is that it should be possible to install a package
 > >> without using it, so the autoloads file should only set things up so
 > >> that they *can* be used, but not so that they're automatically used
 > >> without being explicitly requested.
[...]
 > > It also seems to me that there is a certain conflict between what you
 > > say and this from the manual:
 > 
 > >   These autoload definitions are saved to a file named
 > >   ‘NAME-autoloads.el’ in the content directory.  They are typically used
 > >   to autoload the principal user commands defined in the package, but
 > >   they can also perform other tasks, such as adding an element to
 > >   ‘auto-mode-alist’.
 > 
 > I don't see a conflict there.  Opening a file with the particular
 > extension counts as an "explicit request".

For a major mode, usually[1], for a minor mode (as slime-mode is),
rarely[2].  IMHO YMMV etc.

Footnotes: 
[1]  Unfortunately overloaded extensions are hardly uncommon.

[2]  Of course, .gz invoking a decompressor is unlikely to bother very
many people.  Nevertheless, in XEmacs we decided it should not be
enabled via autoloads.  FWIW, of course.