RE: Calling (package-initialize) sooner during initialization

[Drew Adams]

> > Why don't you write to the custom-file (and make the use of
> > custom-file the default instead of writing custom settings
> > in .emacs by default) ?
> 
> When should the custom-file be loaded?  Before .emacs is too
> early.  After .emacs is too late.

It should *not* be loaded automatically.  It should be loaded
by the user, explicitly (from the init file, typically).

Unless the init file is absent or empty.  In that case, it
could be added to a virgin init file.  Emacs could also provide
a command that creates such a starter init-file, which contains
only a sexp to load `custom-file'.

A bigger question is how `custom-file' gets customized.  Using
Customize for that is problematic, for obvious reasons.