[texhax] [tex-live] Ftuture state of XeTeX in TeXLive

[Jim Diamond]

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 09:28 (+0000), Philip TAYLOR (Webmaster, Ret'd) wrote:

> [TeX Live list dropped, TeXhax added]

> Ulrike Fischer wrote:

>> So a font loader should be written as a sort of library with clear API
>> which can be used by every format.

> Amen.  And if other add-ons could follow suit, what an enormous
> benefit that might bring.  Although, as regular readers of the list
> will know, I do have philosophical problems with LaTeX, I think that
> my severest criticism is its monolithic nature : if you want to use
> any part of LaTeX's functionality, you have to use the whole
> caboodle, want it or not.

Fortunately, that is not completely true.  There are some useful
pieces of latex (*spit*) that work well with plain TeX.  In some cases
you need to \input miniltx.tex first, and in other cases you don't.

A couple of contributors seem to be diligent about making their stuff
work with plain.  I was going to name names, and then I decided I'd
forget someone, which might be mistaken for a toe-stepping-on sort of
thing.

I use color.sty, graphicx.sty, xspace.sty and (with luatex) luaotfload.sty.
IIRC soul.sty worked for me as well the one time I tried it out.
In some cases you need to add a macro or two to get these to work, but
nothing major for the ones I use.

Cheers.
				Jim