Re: When and how to register various font backends

[Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com>]

>>>>> On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 15:26:18 +0300, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> said:

    >> From: Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com>
    >> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
    >> Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2019 13:52:28 +0200
    >> 
    >> Whilst such an ability to change font backends is cool, I really donʼt
    >> see it being very much used: as I said in my other message, in the
    >> long term only the HarfBuzz backend will be supported, so I donʼt see
    >> any need to add such infrastructure.

    Eli> In addition to what I already wrote on this matter, there's one more
    Eli> consideration we should keep in mind: Emacs should never put all of
    Eli> its eggs into a single basket.  As active as HarfBuzz development is
    Eli> today, that could change in the future for reasons beyond our
    Eli> control.  So we should keep the mechanism of using more than a single
    Eli> font backend, in case we will need to make another change such as the
    Eli> one we did now with HarfBuzz.

I was not proposing that we remove the ability to change font
backends, just that we not implement the font backend superseding
stuff.

Robert