[luatex] macros to invoke lua in LaTeX

[Robin Fairbairns]

Taco Hoekwater <taco at elvenkind.com> wrote:

> Karl Berry wrote:
> > P.S. The answer to the various questions of "when does this ever cause a
> > problem" is simple: any existing latex document that issues the
> > perfectly reasonable construct \newcommand{\primitive}{...} fails.
> 
> Which nicely demonstrates that LaTeX was designed with a completely
> frozen engine in mind (but I'll shut up about it now).

latex was, but i don't see how the above demonstrates it.

karl observes that latex allows the user to checks that hir definitions
aren't overwriting some existing "thing".  sure, this can cause problems
when the engine is changed, but the design aimed to avoid clashes of
user macros with packages, etc.

*failure* to detect that the user is in the habit of redefining
 something that the engine (now) provides, is potentially just as (or
 even more) troublesome, imo.   of course, either way, one gets a
 "confused user" message appearing on the support lists...

r