Bootstrap/autoload policy (was Re: regular expressions that match nothing)

[Mattias Engdegård]

15 maj 2019 kl. 23.07 skrev Mattias Engdegård <address@hidden>:
> 
> We don't necessarily need a special form for it; we can just make `(or)' work.
> 
> Proposed patch attached. (I also added its dual, (seq), since it would be 
> silly not to.)

Naïvely thinking the patch would be uncontroversial, I pushed it to master only 
to see a bootstrap failure and I could use some policy advice.

The patch uses `cl-every' in rx.el, and the surface error (now fixed) was that 
rx didn't require `cl-extra' where that function is defined, despite it being 
autoloaded. (rx is pulled in from compile.el, from bytecomp.el, from 
cl-generic.el, from loadup.el.)

What I would like to know is whether the bootstrap was trying to tell me 
something here. Was I wrong in using `cl-every' in the first place? How do I 
know when to trust autoload, and when to use an explicit require? Bootstrap 
after every change and see if it breaks?