[XeTeX] XeTeX bugs in bidirectional typesetting

[Vafa Khalighi]

> Well, it's not necessarily useless. If both engines are using the same

> model, then you have twice as many communities available to fix bugs.
> And it means the bug fixes and bidi expertise can be shared between the
> two communities. I would also recommend XeTeX moving to the LuaTeX model
> - and then fixing it!

Something which did not work for the past 10 years is concrete proof that it is not going to be of any use.




> As I understand it, the
> problems with bidi were one of the reasons that Khaled stopped working
> on XeTeX, which in a sense is a shame - he's exactly the sort of person
> you need to get this right...

He is by no means an expert in bidi typesetting. I have maintained the bidi package over 10 years and have fixed hundreds of bugs (if not thousands). He has not even written any considerable code for bidi typesetting and he gave up too easily. So your suggestion is simply void which is reasonable since you have no knowledge of the matter. On the other hand, I have both experience and knowledge in both macro level and engine development for bidi typesetting so it is unlikely that I am going to follow anyone.


For the past 10 years, I used to be a citizen of a few dictatorship TeX worlds and I along many others were treated like slaves. Now I am announcing my independence, I want to build my own democratic TeX world and free all the slaves so that they can be treated like normal citizens.

> If you want an engine with a working bidi model, then you might want to
> have a look at SILE. (https://github.com/simoncozens/sile) It uses the
> Unicode bidi algorithm and so you get multilevel reordering without any
> markup required. (See
> https://github.com/simoncozens/sile/blob/master/examples/arabic.pdf) But
> of course then you don't get the large set of packages and the mature
> community...

I do not have time and energy to waste. Please stop advertising. I have no interest in your work.

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