Re: interactive feel of Emacs: the need for speed, and -Q [measure.el]

[Stefan Monnier]

> I long ago adopted the use of require in my .emacs file as a well-worn
> shorthand for "load this unless it's already loaded". Is there an
> alternative that I should be using instead?

If what you want is "load this unless it's already loaded", then
`require` is the answer.  But the code in ~/.emacs should not about
about "loading" it should be about enabling/disabling: loading a file
(other than the init file, that is) should never noticeably affect
Emacs's behavior, so "loading" should be of no concern when writing your
config file (unless you're concerned about pre-loading a package for
performance reasons, maybe).


        Stefan