[luatex] Luatex primitive names

[Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard]

Hans Hagen a écrit :
> so, i'm not sure what critital backward compatibility you're refering to
> 
I think the point of this thread is not asking for backward compatibility. We
all know the current status of LuaTeX, and that development cannot happen with
strict backward compatibility. No-one is discussing the fact that almost
everything can change until version 1.0. We're just asking for a (stable) way to
deal with such instability.

A lot of people want to test LuaTeX. Macro writers want to write macro packages
with it, and then to have those macros tested by real users. So even if LuaTeX
should not be used for production now, it will indeed be used by "non-hacker"
users, at least for testing purpose. (And I guess it is the very reason why
LuaTeX is in TL'08.)

Now, not every TeX environment can offer such a high level of synchronisation
between executables and macros as ConTeXt distributions (the minimals and the
Debian packages) do. So outside ConTeXt it is useful for a macro writer to be
able to test for the engine and its version at runtime.

The point is: of course it is not an absolute need, but it will really make life
simpler. OTOH, I don't think that providing a simple an reliable detection
mechanism is a huge workload for Taco or you. Actually, I'm sure we already
spent more time discussing whether it is useful than Taco needs to design,
implement and document an unambiguous engine+version identification tool like
the one we're asking for.

Manuel.