[luatex] Proposal to fix the namespace argument

[Will Robertson]

On 2009-03-10 09:02:41 +1030, 
karl at freefriends.org (Karl Berry) said:

> So given these new features, I think for (pdf)lualatex in TL'09 we
> should remap at least the non-prefixed primitives to \LaTeX.  (I guess.)
> I'm not sure if we should remap the ones that already include "lua" or
> start with \U.  I don't see a great need to do so.

I'd add the prefix to them all; there's a primitive called \Uroot which 
is short enough to conceivably exist in a document somewhere.

> For plain, though, I think it's not necessary.  After all, we're not
> going to change "tex" itself (ever), and etex/pdftex/etc. will continue
> to invoke pdftex in TL'09.  (When and if that ever changes, we
> could/should change the ini files to hide the luatex primitives for
> those fmt's.)

(Thinking out loud here.) Under this philosophy, wouldn't it make sense 
for (pdf)lualatex to continue to enable the LuaTeX primitives in LaTeX? 
And then remove the primitives only if/when LuaTeX becomes the engine 
for (pdf)latex itself?

Well, I can see how that would be annoying for package authors :) It 
could work if we write an "enable LuaTeX primitives" package (which 
would probably be Elie's luatextra), which would do nothing under 
"lualatex" but activate all the primitives when using "latex" running 
with LuaTeX.

No, I think it's more sensible (unless I've somehow managed to change 
your mind above) to stay with your original plan of deactivating all 
primitives even in lualatex -- but only if you think that there's a 
possibility one day of it becoming the default engine. (Which is kind 
of the point of the whole discussion.)

> So for TL'09, the only way that users can invoke plain-with-luatex is by
> "luatex" or "pdfluatex".  It seems reasonable to me for those programs
> to expose native luatex (whatever it happens to be), with no remapping.

That makes sense to me.
Good plan!

Will