Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 4449301: * etc/NEWS: Improve documentation of 'package-initialize'.

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Currently, this requires setting (setq package-alist nil) by hand to
>> force reloading the package descriptors, but my hope is that we can
>> improve this in the future (e.g. with a :setter placed on those vars so
>> that package-activate-all is called again when they're modified via
>> custom).
>
> OK, thanks for explaining that.  I have attached a patch which changes
> package-enable-at-startup into a defvar for now.

I'm not sure if there's much harm in keeping it as a defcustom, so I'll
let someone else decide whether we should change it.  But if we do want
to change it, the patch looks OK to me in this respect.

> I've also added documentation to package-load-list and
> package-user-dir to explain the above quirks.

But this doesn't mention the fact that it still works if they use
`package-quickstart`.

>> Also, a "late-setting" of `package-load-list` (e.g. when set via
>> customize) will still work if you use `package-quickstart`.
> I have two questions here:
> 1. I can't find anything on package-quickstart in the user manual.
>    Is that intentional?

No.

> Perhaps it would make sense to create a new node "initialization of
> packages" which could describe all this.

Yes.  Maybe it should be a bit more general and include discussion of
customize settings.  IOW it could talk about dependencies and ordering
between package.el, custom.el, and "manual Elisp settings".

> 2. Should package-quickstart have a :set attribute with a value of
> 'package-quickstart-refresh?

I don't think so: the refresh should happen when the set of
installed/activated packages changes, whereas what you suggest would
cause a refresh to happen at every Emacs startup.

But I guess it does deserve a :set function, which should take care to
run `package-quickstart-refresh` if there's no quickstart file yet, or
to delete the quickstart file when set to nil (in both cases it should
maybe prompt the user before actually doing it?).


        Stefan