bug#31397: 27.0.50; Emacs doesn't call package-initialize if there's no elpa directory

[Noam Postavsky]

Zachary Kanfer <zkanfer@gmail.com> writes:

> I like my init file to completely set up Emacs: I want to be able to
> start with an empty ~/.emacs.d/ move my init file into it, and start up
> Emacs.
[...]
> I've read up on the early init file. My understanding is that users
> should no longer call #'package-initialize in their init files. This is
> supported by, if I do have a call to #'package-initialize, starting
> Emacs gives me a warning "Warning (package): Unnecessary call to
> ‘package-initialize’ in init file". So I figured I would remove it. But
> I quickly ran into a problem, or at least an area for better
> documentation.
[...]
> A minimal init file that shows my problem is here:
>
>     (require 'package)
>     (add-to-list 'package-archives
>                  '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/";))
>
>     (message "use-package is installed: %s" (package-installed-p 
> 'use-package))
>
> Here's how I delete the elpa directory, and then start up Emacs:
>
>     $ rm -r ~/.emacs.d/elpa
>     $ src/emacs
>
> Upon doing so, here's the error I get:
>
>     Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading
> ‘/home/zck/.emacs.d/init.el’:
>
>     error: package.el is not yet initialized!


> Anything I can do to help narrow this down? I'm not sure what to do to make 
> this work.

Perhaps adding Radon to Cc will help, not sure if they're subscribed to
the bug list.