with-eval-after-load vs use-package

After 1 year with Emacs, I think it’s about the time to refactor my config which consists of multiple elisp files. What are your thoughts about use-package or eval-after-load? Now I’m using the latter, but it feels it’s a little messy, with ‘require’ here and there and not much lazy loaded.

use-package is a high-level abstraction of packages loading and configuration. with-eval-after-load is low level and is not specific to package. you may combine both.

Use `use-package` that's why it was "invented". `use-package` is a DSL (domain specific language) for exactly this (and some more). This DSL stuff (made out of a feature called [Lisp Macros](https://gigamonkeys.com/book/macros-defining-your-own.html)) is one thing, why Lisp is cool. `use-package` is hiding the ugly stuff from you and makes it look pretty. Go for `use-package`!

I do not use `use-package` yet I only have a single explicit `(require ...)` in my config, and that is because everything else gets auto-loaded. The reason why I would discourage use of `use-package` is because configuring Emacs is not just enabling a bunch of packages. Rather you configure features; such as Evil mode, minibuffer completions or IDE aspects; and for each of those tasks you may need multiple packages with intertwining configuration/function definitions. Therefore I think `use-package` stanzas are the wrong grouping and only a local, not global, maximum in terms of neatness.

Every package brings it own settings and keymaps, therefore it is useful to cluster settings which belongs to one package. That makes packages more easily exangable|removable. Intertwining just makes a complex mess, which it does not have to be (in most cases).

> Intertwining just makes a complex mess, which it does not have to be (in most cases). I did not say you should intertwine just for the sake of it.

`:after`