Subject: bug#30506: Say Added by package.el

From: Tassilo Horn <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2019 08:51:20 +0200

積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <[email-masked]> writes:

> TH> package.el[c] is still there, but it doesn't add the above comment
> TH> and code to the user's init file.
>
> Maybe the package-initialize's docstring should say "You may have
> noticed a line in your .emacs file... Well it is now safe to remove
> that line."

The NEWS entry is this:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
** Installed packages are now activated *before* loading the init file.
This is part of a change intended to eliminate the behavior of
package.el inserting a call to 'package-initialize' into the init
file, which was previously done when Emacs was started.  As a result
of this change, it is no longer necessary to call 'package-initialize'
in your init file.

However, if your init file changes the values of 'package-load-list'
or 'package-user-dir', or sets 'package-enable-at-startup' to nil then
it won't work right without some adjustment:
- You can move that code to the early init file (see above), so those
  settings apply before Emacs tries to activate the packages.
- You can use the new 'package-quickstart' so activation of packages
  does not need to pay attention to 'package-load-list' or
  'package-user-dir' any more.
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

So I guess the entry won't hurt anyone but simply removing it might
cause issues for people with some special configurations.  Additionally,
`package-initialize' prints a warning

  Unnecessary call to `package-initialize' in init file

to *Messages* if it is called once packages have been initialized
already and no such special configurations apply.

So it looks to me like it has been catered for the unnecessary call case
already.  I'm closing this issue.

Bye,
Tassilo