Confusion about first-change-hook

[David Engster]

I wanted to do something very simple: Activate whitespace-mode only when
I start editing a buffer. So I looked into the manual and found
`first-change-hook', which seemed exactly what I wanted.

However, I soon saw that whitespace-mode got immediately activated in my
C++ buffers. The reason is that changing a text property apparently
already counts as "changing the buffer". Is this really the desired
behavior? If so, what else is there to achieve the above? Should I file
a wishlist-bug for something like 'buffer-modified-hook'?

-David