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Subject:
From:
Elie Roux <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:08:58 +0100
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Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard a écrit :
> I'm sorry but I disagree on this point. I don't think it is urgent to 
> adjust the
> real inputenc. LuaTeX is still in early beta, so it should be used only by
> somehow experienced users, or at least users aware of what they are doing. Such
> users should be able to understand that they should either encode their source
> in utf-8 (and don't load any inputenc) or load luainputenc.
>   

With the new solution, people have to load luainputenc, it's not 
optional anymore.

> By the way, people using XeTeX just encode their sources in utf-8 and skip
> loading inputenc, and seem to be happy with it.
>   

I think LuaTeX does not target the same users. With luainputenc and 
fontenc working, LuaTeX can start targetting the average user, as the 
old LaTeX documents will be working with LuaLaTeX (if inputenc loads 
luainputenc). XeTeX will never allow old documents to be compiled with 
it, as most input encoding problems have no solution.

> Ok, so this is the point. You expect LuaTeX to become the default engine some
> day, and for this to happen, backwards compatibility will indeed be very
> important. But this will not happen before (at least) 2012 (announced date for
> the first stable version). So I see no harm in waiting a bit before implementing
> backward compatibility solutions.
>   

And I see no harm in proposing a working LuaLaTeX... Of course, as 
LuaTeX is not stable, LuaLaTeX won't be stable... but remember that 
people call LuaLaTeX with the command "lualatex", so they know what they 
are doing.

> Moreover, luainputenc, as far as I understand it, is currently not able to
> compile correctly 100% of the old documents written for LaTeX over 8-bit TeX,
> mainly due to the generated files problem. So IMO it is best to keep it as a
> separate package while the issues are not solved. It also needs some (more)
> real-life testing before being integrated in inputenc, IMO.
>   

LuaTeX can only write UTF-8, so people needing to write in files in 
8-bit without LICR (meaning not a lot of people) will have problems if 
they do it in home-made package (I solved the problem for all files 
generated by packages in TeXLive), so the problem concerns noone except 
very advanced TeX users... I know you're one of them, but for the 
average user it will be 99.9999% backward compatible. It doesn't mean 
that it's 100% stable though, as LuaTeX will continue to evolve.

> A important point is, people need to know the difference between what is stable
> and what isn't. They expect core packages maintained by the LaTeX team to be
> stable and work in a 100% compatible way. This expectation should be satisfied.
>   

Well, I'm not sure pdfTeX and TeX82 were 100% compatible neither...

> By the way, while we're at suggesting things concerning inputenc and Unicode TeX
> engines, my suggestion would be to detect those engines and issue a meaningfull
> error message (not just a warning) like "You're running LuaTeX. inputenc can't
> currently work on Unicode variants of TeX such as LuaTeX. Please consult
> http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=lualatex for how to use LaTeX
> with LuaTeX." and refusing to load.
>   

Or even better: a warning and the loading of luainputenc. I don't think 
this warning is necessary, but I don't have a strong opinion about it, I 
think it will just be boring for the average user...
-- 
Elie

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