i have emacs 24.3.1, and until today i've been using evil 1.0.7: (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/evil/lib") (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/evil") (require 'undo-tree) (require 'evil) (global-undo-tree-mode) (evil-mode 1) now i'm using melpa: (require 'package) (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elpa/undo-tree-20131118.1744") (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elpa/evil-20131218.54") (require 'undo-tree) (require 'evil) (global-undo-tree-mode) (evil-mode 1) apparently evil 1.0.7 in turn made incf available. now, to use incf i also need: (add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/local/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/emacs-lisp") (require 'cl) and in the process i noticed that i don't need any of the add-to-list's in order to run the (require '...)'s manually (via ^x^e), but i do need them if i want the require's to run in my .emacs! can anyone help me understand or drop me a pointer? am i missing something?