Re: Summary and next steps for (package-initialize)

[Clément Pit-Claudel]

On 2017-08-24 19:44, Drew Adams wrote:
> Deciding to "install" a package is somewhat analogous to putting
> a library in your `load-path'.  That doesn't mean it gets loaded.
> Activating a package (`package-initialize') is somewhat analogous
> to loading a library.

Just the autoloads, though, right? Not like `load' or `require'.

> My reply to that was to point out that being part of the core does
> not imply activating.  I said that "lots of things are a core part
> of Emacs and not extensions, but we don't necessarily turn them on
> eagerly and by default."

I'm confused. We load their autoloads from loaddefs.el, don't we? Does 
package-initialize do more?

Cheers,
Clément.