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

[Jonathan Kew]

On 28 Oct 2011, at 21:20, Philip TAYLOR (Webmaster, Ret'd) wrote:
>> 
>> Omega was remove because it was buggy, unmaintained, but most
>> important of all: hardly usable. It took a genius to figure out how to
>> use it, while XeTeX is exactly the contrary. It simplifies everything
>> in comparison to pdfTeX.
> 
> I think that last remark is grossly unfair, although probably
> not intentionally so.  XeTeX adds functionality that was non-
> existent in PdfTeX, but that hardly makes it simpler.

I know I'm supposed to only respond very occasionally to email these days, but I can't resist adding a comment here. :)

IM(NS)HO there is some truth to both sides of this. I believe xetex does make a couple of things _much_ simpler: specifically, the use of a variety of fonts that are not provided by the TeX distribution of your choice, or a TeX-oriented vendor; and working with Unicode, and in particular with non-Latin scripts having complex rendering requirements. While these things could in theory also be done with Omega, achieving them was beyond the ability of all but a very select few experts.

On the other hand, the underlying document formatting language and process is still TeX, with all its trickiness and complexity (and power); xetex certainly doesn't make that any simpler.

>  It
> also introduces a non-TeXlike syntax, particularly (perhaps
> only) in the extended \font primitive that could (IMHO)
> have been better thought out, particularly in the overloading
> of string quotes and the introduction of square brackets.

Yes, I wish now that this had been done differently, not by gradual extension of the old \font primitive but as a properly-designed new feature, but it kinda "just growed" in response to various needs... it's less than ideal, I agree.

JK