Are you talking about TeX--XeT bidirectional typesetting algorithm? No, It has several major bugs and it is not perfect for RTL typesetting (ok but not perfect).
On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 3:18 AM, Petr Tomasek <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 09:20:19AM -0300, George N. White III wrote: > > On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 7:42 AM, Khaled Hosny <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 04:25:21PM +1100, Vafa Khalighi wrote: > > >> XeTeX font support is heaps better and stable than what luaotfload > package > > >> offers and I guess that is why many users still like using xetex > instead > > >> luatex. I personally believe that it is a bad practice that > luaotfload just > > >> copies ConTeXt code, it should not be deeply dependent on ConTeXt > because Hans > > >> may want to try experimenting with some features today and next day > he gets rid > > >> of them just like the recent updates of luaotfload that Khaled talked > about it. > > >> I think, this is awful! What should users who used those features > (and need it > > >> heavily in their daily typesetting tasks, do?). They wake up one day > and > > >> suddenly see that yes, luaotfload does not provide the features they > need. > > >> luaotfload needs to be written from scratch independent of any > ConTeXt code. > > > > > > The situation is not as bad as you make it seems, what have gone is two > > > minor features that IMO was a mistake to provide them in the first > > > place, but since we are talking about a yet to be released version of > > > luaotfload, there might be an alternate solution at the time of > release. > > > > > > Writing an OpenType layout engine is not a simple task, and you can > > > judge from the many years it toke FOSS community to have a really good > > > one, HarfBuzz (the name luaotfload is misleading, font loading is about > > > the easiest part of luaotfload, OpenType implementation is really what > > > matters.) If it were for me, I'd plug HarfBuzz into luatex proper and > > > call it a day, but this does not align well with the "design" > principles > > > of luatex so it is unlikely to happen. > > > > If plugging harfbuzz into luatex does not require a huge effort, it could > > serve as bridge from xetex to luatex while a more principled design > > is being created. > > It would be better to have XeTeX with a stable HarfBuzz-ng support. > > Actually, I think little people need more then than what XeTTeX acctually > provides... > > -- > Petr Tomasek <http://www.etf.cuni.cz/~tomasek> > Jabber: [email protected] > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > EA 355:001 DU DU DU DU > EA 355:002 TU TU TU TU > EA 355:003 NU NU NU NU NU NU NU > EA 355:004 NA NA NA NA NA > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > >
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