Re: Adding skillicons to TeXlive

    file) defines around 8000 commands and that in every document that
    wants to use one emoji with this package. 

Seems to me they don't have to define all their commands up front.
\someemoji{codepoint}

Also, maybe there could be some clever way to associate pdf page numbers
with code points so there doesn't have to be an explicit mapping.

Apart from that, agreed that it's unfortunate, but better 8000 commands,
to place the burden on the few people who want to use such a package,
than 8000 files, which affects/slows down everyone, namely the 99% who
have no need for <random icon collection of thousands of files>.
And there are several such collections, so it's a slippery slope. -k