emacs-lisp/cl-*.el and requirement of cl

[Glenn Morris]

Does anyone know why emacs-lisp/cl-compat.el does this:

  ;; Require at load-time, but not when compiling cl-compat.
  (or (featurep 'cl) (require 'cl))

rather than just a simple "(require 'cl)"?

Similarly, cl-macs and cl-seq throw errors if loaded without cl being
loaded first. Is there any reason not to just make them require cl?
I know just doing it naively can lead to a recursive require, but that
is easily worked around, eg:


*** cl.el       12 May 2008 01:45:41 -0000      1.63
--- cl.el       3 Jul 2008 21:29:27 -0000
***************
*** 632,648 ****
  
  ;; This goes here so that cl-macs can find it if it loads right now.
  (provide 'cl-19)     ; usage: (require 'cl-19 "cl")
  
  ;; Things to do after byte-compiler is loaded.
- ;; As a side effect, we cause cl-macs to be loaded when compiling, so
- ;; that the compiler-macros defined there will be present.
  
  (defvar cl-hacked-flag nil)
  (defun cl-hack-byte-compiler ()
!   (if (and (not cl-hacked-flag) (fboundp 'byte-compile-file-form))
!       (progn
!       (setq cl-hacked-flag t)         ; Do it first, to prevent recursion.
!       (cl-compile-time-init))))       ; In cl-macs.el.
  
  ;; Try it now in case the compiler has already been loaded.
  (cl-hack-byte-compiler)
--- 632,648 ----
  
  ;; This goes here so that cl-macs can find it if it loads right now.
  (provide 'cl-19)     ; usage: (require 'cl-19 "cl")
+ (provide 'cl)
  
  ;; Things to do after byte-compiler is loaded.
  
  (defvar cl-hacked-flag nil)
  (defun cl-hack-byte-compiler ()
!   (and (not cl-hacked-flag) (fboundp 'byte-compile-file-form)
!        (progn
!          (setq cl-hacked-flag t)  ; Do it first, to prevent recursion.
!          (load "cl-macs" nil t)
!          (run-hooks 'cl-hack-bytecomp-hook))))
  
  ;; Try it now in case the compiler has already been loaded.
  (cl-hack-byte-compiler)