[lltx] luatexbase

[Khaled Hosny]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 07:22:31PM +0100, Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard wrote:
> > I'd like to move luaextra to
> > luatexbase too (unless stability is a concern, then it should live in
> > its own package),
> 
> I was thinking about it too, and I would prefer a separate package, so that in
> the long run luatexbase can become very stable.

OK, I can understand that :) ConTeXt-derived code is API unstable and I
think Hans has to plans to stabilize it prior LuaTeX 1.0 (and I can
understand this too :)

> > and kill luatextra completely and move document
> > specific parts to xltxtra. I think unifying XeTeX and LuaTeX specific
> > packages would allow smoother user experience, and better
> > maintainability.
> 
> In the long run, it's probably a good idea, but I'm afraid it's a bit too early
> to do this.

Too late, I'm almost done porting xltxra to LuaTeX, there isn't really
much XeTeX specific code there.

> For example, the version of fontspec supporting LuaTeX is not
> release to CTAN, hence widely tested, yet, unless I'm mistaken.

Right, mostly because luaotfload isn't done enough yet. Once we manage
to properly implement a font names database, LuaTeX part of Fontspec 2.0
should be almost done, bugs aside, but then I doubt we will be able to
upload to CTAN since it is unlikely to work with LuaTeX in TeXlive.

> I think (quite strongly) that we should avoid anticipating to much, so that we
> (and users) can build confidence in the lualatex packages. and more generally
> LaTeX on LuaTeX. IMO, XeLaTeX is quite more mature right now.

My approach is that to expect the user to be using the latest
(development) versions of, what I consider, LuaLaTeX bundle, which
includes right now: luatextra, luaotfload, euenc, fontspec and
luainputenc, together with latest luatex binary. Any other combination
is untested and hence unsupported. This way, IMO, we save ourselves lots
of multiple versions and compatibility headache

Later on, once a certain level of functionality is reached, we can setup
our texlive repository, lualatex-dev or whatever, and ask interested
users to test it, later (my goal is TeXlive 2010) we can declare it
stable enough and advertise it to regular users.

I strongly believe that tight cooperation between the related packages
will save us LaTeX package incompatibility hell, like the way latex3
packages are developed for example.


> > The name might be subobtimal, may be we can rename
> > xltxtra to ultxtra (u for Unicode), or even get a better name (I always
> > mistype xltxtra!) and make xltxtra.sty a small wrapper for backward
> > compatibility. Will, what do you think?
> > 
> While talking names, I'm always troubled that luaextra and luatextra have so
> similar names (only one letter difference, and similar pronouncation). I was
> thinking about renaming luaTextra to lltxtra, since it's a xltxtra but for
> luatex. Arguably, it's also only one letter different from an existing package,
> but since you can't pronouce either name, the letter is more prominent (and this
> similarity makes a lot of sense since the packages may be merged later).

I'd rather try to expose the user to as less packages as possible, like
the way xltxtra abstract the user from several packages, and I'd also
try to use less confusing names (I like unicode-math for example). May I
suggest "unicode-latex" as a meta package that would take car of loading
various XeTeX or LuaTeX packages for the user? (it should essentially be
xltxra with LuaTeX support for the time being).

Regards,
 Khaled


-- 
 Khaled Hosny
 Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
 Free font developer