Re: bug#30854: 27.0.50; Speeding up package.el startup

[Stefan Monnier]

> Maybe I missunderstand how it works; but can user activate packages
> before the end of early-init.el if they don't require package.el?

Of course, they can just call `package-activate-all`.

> Wouldn't it be contradictory to the idea of quickstart?

This is orthogonal to `package-quickstart`.

> I just hacked things with the least effort possible :-). This was the
> smallest change I was able to come up with atm.

Yes, I still have to sleep on it, I think, but I'm beginning to like the idea.

> I don't see why someone would not want to use quickstart?  So as a
> thought: why not make quickstart normal mode how package loading works?

Yes, I think we should.  But for that we need to make sure the
quickstart file is properly recreated every time it's needed.

There might also be situations where that can't be done, tho: e.g. if
`package-directory-list` includes a directory maintained by the
sysadmin, then we won't be told when packages get
installed/removed/upgraded in that directory.  To handle such a case
we'd have to either disable quickstart altogether or add some kind of
"freshness" check at startup before using the quickstart file.


        Stefan