Re: [patch] Fixes and improvements in org-latex-language-alist (was: ox-latex language handling in Org-9.5 vs 9.6)

[Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>]

Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> writes:

>> It is already a public constant. And I see no strong reason to change
>> this (strong enough to justify breaking change).
>
> Every piece of code accessing this public constant must implement 
> fallback from e.g. "de-ch" (or de_CH) to "de". Or to "en" for an 
> unsupported language. To achieve consistent behavior it is better to 
> provide a helper function.

Not necessarily. I mostly thought about some unconventional code that
uses the constant for some reason unexpected to us. We do not want to
break that.

Helper function is certainly a good idea. I did plan for it.

>>> I have a hope that properties may be generated from CLDR data, LaTeX
>>> babel .ini files, etc. However it should be possible to override
>>> specific properties.
>> 
>> For context, I plan to provide a global language-identifier alist that
>> will link human-readable language names to abbreviations like "de",
>> "de-de", etc.
>
> This languange-region identifiers may be written in different way 
> (dash/underscore, case), but they are used specify POSIX locale LANG, 
> LC_* and extensions like LANGUAGE, so in some cases human friendly names 
> may be less convenient.

Sorry, but I do not follow you about the downsides of "human friendly" names.

>> Though I am not sure if we can easily handle tricky
>> cases like weird installation directory for TeXLive or MikTeX.
>
> kpsewhich babel-de.ini

which may not be in the PATH.

> /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/generic/babel/locale/de/babel-de.ini

which is not true on Guix, or when installed under /opt via make install.

I did not mean the conventional distros that follow conventional naming
schemes, but the edge cases - I see no point adding automation just to
fight various non-standard user installations later. It will not make
maintenance any easier.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
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