[XeTeX] The future of XeTeX

[Zdenek Wagner]

2012/8/8 Ulrike Fischer <news3 at nililand.de>:
> Am Wed, 8 Aug 2012 09:52:25 +0200 schrieb Paul Isambert:
>
>
>>> I personally don't care much *how* e.g. open type fonts are handled.
>>> The "typesetting engine" can use an external library, lua-files, or
>>> some library included in the binary. I care only *if* the core
>>> engine itself, the part advertised on the webpage, can handle the
>>> fonts like a bare xetex can handle them.
>>>
>>> Sorry, but can you imagine that a typesetting engine can thrive
>>> which must say on its webpage "I'm a wonderful tex engine based on
>>> unicode but if you want to use open type fonts you will have to
>>> write or adapt a lot of complicated code first".?
>>
>> Honestly, yes :)
>> That's what TeX is to me anyway: a wonderful system that requires a lot
>> of hard work.
>>
>> On http://www.luatex.org/roadmap.html, you can read:
>>
>>     There are two solutions for handling fonts: using the internal
>>     functions that do what TeX has always done, or write a Lua function
>>     that does a different job. As there are multiple solutions possible
>>     and as we expect macro packages to have their own ways of dealing
>>     with fonts, there is not one solution for dealing with fonts anyway.
>>     Also, TeXies have always wanted full control over matters, and this
>>     is provided by the Lua solution.
>
> But allowing packages or formats to write and use their own code for
> open type fonts doesn't mean that the "luatex project" can ignore
> open type fonts completly. The fact that latex users can write
> beautiful and powerful packages e.g. for tabulars don't mean that
> the latex kernel don't have to provide code for tabulars.
>
> I don't ask that a font loader should be included in the binary. A
> lua package which you can use in the font callback is fine. It is
> also okay if you need to adapt a configuration file before use e.g.
> to get it working with your texsystem or your os. The main point is
> that a working, default open type font loader should exist at all.
>
That's why most users do not compile TeX from sources and do not pick
files from CTAN but use TeX distributions. Such system dependent
modifications are already done there.
>
>> In a few years, TeX users will have sprouted new wizards that'll deal
>> with fonts like the current wizards play with \output and \expandafter.
>
> Two years ago I would have said this too. But now I doubt it.
> Opentype fonts are much more complicated that some expandafters or
> the latex output routine. Also - more importantly - I see none of
> the needed discussion going on.
>
When I started to work with TeX, literature could not be bought in
Czechoslovakia. I could not read the TeXbook. I looked into well
documented packages from the Mainz distribution. Reading an
explanation how a trick was solved using \expandafter I understood how
it works and became able to use it. On the contrary I have tried
several times to read the Indic OpenType specification but I still
understand nothing. Adding full OpenType + AAT + Graphite support to
luaotfload will not be an easy task.

> --
> Ulrike Fischer
> http://www.troubleshooting-tex.de/
>
>
>
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-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz