Dear David and others,
If you use ELPA for installing it, it is enabled by default. If we
would aim for AUCTeX only being used as a consequence of deliberate user
action rather than system administration activity, the defaults would
likely be different.
First, I apologize in advance, if I misunderstand what you are saying. So, please bear with me if I do misunderstand it.
From your argument in your previous message, I thought that
(1) the parsing of the TeX installation tree would happen to all
emacs users if the variable is set by default.
But according to this latest of yours, it seems that
(2) the parsing of the TeX installation tree would happen
to those users who explicitly install AUCTeX through ELPA.
(The installation of AUCTeX wouldn't happen unless you explicitly do so. Is that correct?)
Situations (1) and (2) are very different. Those users who explicitly install AUCTeX are those who want the variable to be set, I would think.
If the situation is (1), then your argument is strong, as I said. If the situation is (2), I don't understand why you are concerned about emacs users who don't use AUCTeX.
Perhaps I'm missing something.
Regards,
Ryo