On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 01:34:07PM -0400, erik quanstrom wrote:
>
> i don't even have an opinion on this. i don't understand the conflation
> of the input character set and tex's internal representations. could
> you explain why you are taking about them as the same?
>
> to be brutally honest, tex could internally use an array of monkeys
> flinging poo to represent characters /internally/ and i would be much
> happer than with a reasonable internal representation and a difficult
> and incompatable external representation. at least that way the monkeys
> flinging poo are hermetically sealed within the program and not flinging
> poo all over my system. :-)
In TeX there is, initially, a defined subset: ASCII. Because TeX is a
compiler/interpreter and one needs to be able to send some
"bootstrapping" commands. This can be rapidly overwritten (but starting
with some ASCII like characters). This can be almost arbitrary.
What people were precisely arguing is precisely that external business,
and "state of the art" (that is soon to be "out of fashion") fonts and
whatever mood "du jour" should lead to the rewrite of TeX internals.
I precisely claim to let TeX internals alone. The majority of the work
is external (the main being in the dvi drivers). If I want to use
ligatures, I shall be able to do. If others want to put directly the
code for the ligatured glyph, they can, but this is their problem and
not a holy rule.
>[...]
> again, i don't think anyone cares if this is how things work internally.
>
Unfortunately wrong. Read back the thread (if you really have
nothing more interesting to do). I have explained this "256 subfonts"
business in the first message, and immediately got answers that
the "correct way" was teaching TeX "modern" fonts.
--
Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
http://www.kergis.com/
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