Ulrike Fischer wrote:
Am Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:19:15 +0100 schrieb Taco Hoekwater:
Not just right now, but at any time in the future: if a new primitive
\foo is introduced, any existing package that happens to use \foo is
potentially affected.
This is the best argument ever -- for not developing luatex at all.
Until version luatex 1.0, we reserve the right to make any change.
Because if we were to promise not to remove old primitives and to
avoid adding conflicting primitives, you get exactly what you have
already: pdftex. Which isn't going away.
Naturally luatex can add new primitives (and should do it) like
pdftex has done it. And you will never be able to avoid that such a
new primitive clash somehow. But nevertheless I think it would be
very useful if the names of the primitives would use an uniform
prefix -- even more as luatex is not stable and new primitives can
arise or disappear again. Prefixes like \pdf of pdftex and \XeTeX of
xetex create a simple namespace and enable package writers to avoid
_future_ conflicts with new primitives simply by not using the
prefix.
there is no such problem:
- engine starts up with \newthing defined as primitive
- macro packagesis loaded and defines \newthing itself
so, how can there be a conflict? only if other packages expect \newthing
to be the primitive which they can't because it was always a macro
now, nothing prevents a macro package core to provide \prefixednewthing
as soon as \newthing shows up in the engine
so, instead of messing around with the engine's prefix (which is not
robust either) a macro package can enforce its own policy
Hans
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
| www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------
