RE: doc of defining minor modes

[Drew Adams]

OK, I hear the argument as being that a user could be disoriented if a mode
is turned on without his/her being aware of it. That makes sense. It is also
not clearly expressed in the documentation.

As I said, if "you want people to understand and respect [this
recommendation], then it should be clarified and justified (explain why) in
the doc." I do not think the doc is clear on this at all.

The doc should explicitly say that loading a minor mode should not have any
user-visible effect, and explain why. The why should mention that it might
disorient users (or something to that effect). In particular, it should not
speak in terms of "harm" and "pain". No such harm or pain was finally
pointed out, so let's not be alarmist about this. It's enough to say that a
user might be disoriented to suddenly find that a mode was turned on. And
the doc should indicate how that might happen (e.g. Customize loading a
library...), so people understand it.

The doc should explicitly say that, because of this, :init-value should not
be used or should be used only with value nil, except for the corner case
described. And that corner case should be described better. Thx.