From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Werner LEMBERG Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs design and architecture Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2023 04:39:03 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: <20230915.063903.1878386083669147837.wl@gnu.org> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="30700"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: dimech@gmx.com, owinebar@gmail.com, eliz@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Sep 15 06:39:57 2023 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1qh0cX-0007pp-DU for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 15 Sep 2023 06:39:57 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1qh0bs-00018o-4S; Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:39:16 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1qh0bo-00018I-PX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:39:14 -0400 Original-Received: from mout01.posteo.de ([185.67.36.65]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1qh0bm-0008Uy-AQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:39:11 -0400 Original-Received: from submission (posteo.de [185.67.36.169]) by mout01.posteo.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 29FD7240029 for ; Fri, 15 Sep 2023 06:39:08 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from customer (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by submission (posteo.de) with ESMTPSA id 4Rn1fz3b1lz6tmv; Fri, 15 Sep 2023 06:39:07 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: Received-SPF: pass client-ip=185.67.36.65; envelope-from=werner.lemberg@posteo.de; helo=mout01.posteo.de X-Spam_score_int: -38 X-Spam_score: -3.9 X-Spam_bar: --- X-Spam_report: (-3.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS=0.249, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_MED=-2.3, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_H5=0.001, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_WL=0.001, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:310588 Archived-At: > I know little about LaTeX, but I thought it was nicer commands built > on the same engine as TeX. What would we gain by using LaTeX as the > base instead of Plain TeX? There are a lot of severe drawbacks in the current `texinfo.tex` implementation that cannot or will not be fixed. The most serious are the following. * Texinfo exclusively uses the Computer Modern fonts with its 7-bit(!) OT1 font encoding. This only supports a very limited set of (natural) languages with proper hyphenation and kerning. To say it bluntly and slightly exaggerating, it delivers good typography for US English and nothing else. * Many people don't like the appearance of the Computer Modern fonts. However, it is very hard to change to a different font family, especially because you have to create proper support for the OT1 encoding, which is a non-trivial undertaking. Additionally, you have to directly modify internal `texinfo.tex` macros since Texinfo doesn't provide a proper API to do so. New versions of `texi2any` directly create LaTeX output files, completely bypassing `texinfo.tex` and its limitations. It is thus possible to use the full typographical power of modern TeX engines, which, for example, directly support Unicode and thus essentially all languages of the world. Werner