[XeTeX] "new-babel", was: Ancient Greek hyphenation

[Will Robertson]

Hello,

I just want to mention that it's probably a bad idea to proliferate  
packages beginning with "x" to stand for XeTeX, because the LaTeX3  
project has used this prefix for years for *their* packages. I mean,  
it's not the worst thing in the world but it's better not to create  
confusion where possible.

So, no "xbabel" -- use "new-babel" or "mini-babel" or better yet, a  
new new name altogether. "multilang" or "tongues" come to mind. I  
know it's silly to be thinking of the name before anyone has even  
accepted responsibility for starting code, but it's a Sunday morning :)

On 22/04/2007, at 6:31 , Apostolos Syropoulos wrote:

>> In XeTeX, however, the same effects are achieved either with
>> font-specific "smart" features, or with mappings, or, finally, with
>> active characters (just like in traditional non-Unicode engines).  
>> That's
>> why I think XeTeX is much closer to (pdf)tex than Omega or Aleph  
>> as far
>> as language support packages are concerned.
>
> They are closer by analogy not because they are closer by  
> definition. Also,
> I think this TECkit feature of XeTeX allows people to do things  
> quite similar
> to OTPs (ok up to a degree).


As people with experience now both with XeTeX and with Omega, are we  
missing anything here by not having access to OTPs? LuaTeX *will*  
have them, for what it's worth, but are they *necessary* to typeset  
(or make things easier) for any particular language? Or has Unicode 
+OpenType solved all our problems?

Will