[omega] Draft of paper for EuroTeX 2005

[Karl Berry]

Hi Yannis,

    Subject: [omega] Draft of paper for EuroTeX 2005

I can't even come close to understanding all the implications at first
glance, but I did read through it.  Having these "signs" with properties
attached does seem a reasonable underlying approach to me for
generalized typesetting, for whatever that's worth.  (I am far less
experienced in multilingual typesetting issues than you and many others,
so, it's not worth all that much.  :)

I do wonder about the implementation.  This is so far from TeX, I
surmise that it's basically writing a new program from scratch.  Sure,
assorted algorithms from TeX can be re-used, but actual code?  Not that
this is necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself.  (Indeed, one might
argue it's long overdue -- all those global variables, etc.)  However,
we know that it's devilishly difficult to retain compatibility with TeX
without actually starting with tex.web.

If you have plans along these lines you can share, I'd be most
interested in hearing.

Best,
karl