[tex-k] dynamically loading \patterns

[Karl Berry]

Hi Olaf,

    The second limitation is that TeX wants to have all patterns read
    before typesetting begins (see |new_patterns| in tex.web).  I'm not

"Too late for \patterns" might not be problematic in practice.  Being
able to load patterns at the beginning of the run would be useful as it
stands.  Doing it in the midst of the document would just be a nice bonus.

    does this mean you want the patterns to be a wholesale replacement
    for already loaded patterns?  (At present they are accumulative for
    the current language.)

Being able to accumulate patterns could be useful; then documents that
want better patterns can load them.

Ultimately, if we wanted to change the default patterns that the formats
are built with, we'd want to have a way to clear the patterns.  Could be
some trigger like \patterns{clear!}.  I seem to recall from reading
tex.web that there's nothing that deletes patterns, but just clearing
them wholesale wouldn't be that hard.

Anyway, that can be down the road.  A useful first step would be to
simply eradicate the -ini restriction.  Then we can load additional
patterns in documents (or, more likely, style files).  Wdyt?

Thanks,
karl