Re: Option to not automatically customize-save-variable `package-selected-packages'

[Joost Kremers]

On Thu, Feb 18 2016, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
>> From: Joost Kremers <address@hidden>
>> Cc: Artur Malabarba <address@hidden>, address@hidden, address@hidden, 
>> address@hidden
>> Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 21:34:48 +0100
>> 
>> On Thu, Feb 18 2016, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
>> > I see no fundamental difference
>> > between saving the value of a defcustom and saving the list of
>> > packages the user decided to install.
>> 
>> I think the main difference is that as a user, I can decide *not* to use
>> Customize to set a particular defcustom. I can use a setq in my init
>> file instead.
>
> Can't you do the same with the list of installed packages?

Can I? It was my understanding that package.el will write the list of
user-installed packages to custom-set-variables and there's no way for
the user to prevent this from happening. A quick look at the code of
package.el (on emacs-25 and on master) seems to suggest this is indeed
the case: `package--save-selected-packages' is added to
`after-init-hook' and the function itself appears to save the package
list unconditionally.

Or am I overlooking something?


-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments