Am Tue, 7 Aug 2012 08:51:41 +0200 schrieb Paul Isambert: >>>> But there are also political issues: LuaTeX is developed by a >>>> team focusing on ConTeXt. LaTeX users will always be neglected, >>>> at least that is the feeling I have (Taco is very kind and >>>> helpful but he is paid for a specific task, and LaTeX is not >>>> part of it). >>> I thought somebody would answer to that but nobody did, so (sorry to add >>> to this already too long thread, all the more as I won't even mention >>> XeTeX): >>> Two members of the ``core'' LuaTeX team (Taco and Hans) are indeed two >>> main ConTeXt developers (and even original author, in Hans's case), but >>> I don't think you can say LuaTeX development focuses on ConTeXt (plus >>> Hartmut, the third member, is a LaTeX user, as far as I know). I'd >>> rather say that at most LuaTeX development may be driven by the needs >>> of ConTeXt developers, but that doesn't mean it benefits only to ConTeXt; >>> also, given ConTeXt's high standards, I think it's only for the best. >>> And the specific task Taco is paid for does not include LaTeX, but it >>> does not include ConTeXt either. >> >> Well if you look only at the actual binary then yes your are right: >> it is not focused on context. But the handling of fonts is a core >> feature of a typesetting system. No user of a typesetting system >> would consider it to be complete if it can't handle standard fonts. >> So even if in luatex the font loader (including all the code needed >> to generate caches) is in external lua-files, it should nevertheless >> be considered to be part of "the luatex binary". It shouldn't >> delegate font handling to the formats.
> I understand you're concerned about future font support in LuaTeX, but > technically the engine is little more than an extendable PDFTeX. I know this. But you are again looking only at the binary itself, at the "engine" in the narrow sense. I'm looking at the "typesetting project luatex". > Fonts follow that philosophy: TFM (with mapping to T1) fonts are > supported as in PDFTeX, other formats must be loaded and > processed by hand. Whether it's a good idea or not in that case I > don't know, but it is definitely consistent. (Actually I do think > it's a good idea, but I accept my opinion might be marginal.) 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".? > > Now, as I've already said, Hans has written a format-independent font > loader; somebody is only required to make the necessary adjustments to > (La)TeX, as Khaled did until recently. At first it should not be necessary "to make adjustments". A format-independant font loader should work like the extended \font-command of xetex "out-of-the box". At second as some people complained here in the discussion the font loader doesn't work e.g. with indic fonts. At third it is undocumentated and unmaintained. > My main point was not whether LuaTeX was well-designed, but > whether (La)TeX users could be said to be neglected, which I > still think isn't the case. LaTeX (and the other formats) were neglected because the development of a vital part of the luatex-project - the open type font loader - has not be developed in a format independant way. -- Ulrike Fischer http://www.troubleshooting-tex.de/ -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex