[tex-live] Technical showstoppers for TL2003

[Vladimir Volovich]

"HH" == Hans Hagen writes:

 >> >> \IeC{\textasciicircum} \IeC{\textasciicircum}ef
 PO> Where is the simplicity?
 >> were we talking about simplicity, or whether it's possible to
 >> solve the problem of verbatim typesetting using only macros, and
 >> without any changes to TeX the program like encTeX?

 HH> not all verbatim tex is coded in backslashed (macrobased) tex, at
 HH> least not on my machine;

well, what i was saying that it IS possible to implement verbatim
typesetting (via temporary files) using only MACROS, and with 7-bit
portable temporary output files, answering to your argument:

===============
 HH> now, what is supposed to end up typeset?
 HH> The literal code between \startbuffer and stopbuffer, so \eacute
 HH> (as string) the o bit char, and ^^ef (literal). if the <8bitchar>
 HH> was expanded to \eacute or ^^ef then that would be typeset
 HH> verbatim since there is no way (unless one starts adding
 HH> additional code to trigger things in which case some kind of
 HH> escape character would be needed).
===============

 HH> also, when processing xml (utf-8) (which is not that uncommon
 HH> nowadays) i really want the eight bitter in the toc file -)

sure - if it's XML file, it should be possible to write 8-bit chars to
it (but if this toc file is for TeX-only reading, then it's OK to have
it in LICR-type encoding).

 PO> I am very sorry that my email is now not concerned to the primary
 PO> subject of this thread. But I can't leave the sentence: "encTeX
 PO> is non-standard hack"
 >> yes, it is a non-standard hack. non-standard is because it's an
 >> incompatible extension to TeX, and hack because it's of very
 >> limited usage; something which is not necessary.

 HH> hm, i see nothing wrong in enctex (would even like to see it have
 HH> more mapping features, since in combined tex/ps/js/pdf/whatever
 HH> docs quite some mapping has to be done which is not always
 HH> trivial to do with macros)

the reason i'm against enctex is that i don't see anything useful in
it (all "problems" it "solves" can be solved using only TeX macros
without encTeX) - it only adds a few weird features - adding yet
another non-standard extension to TeX.

Best,
v.