On Fri, Nov 08, 2024 at 03:27:16PM +0100, Hans Hagen wrote:
On 11/8/2024 9:53 AM, Joseph Wright wrote:
It's not a comment - it's that the standard e-TeX implementation for \numexpr only accept a very limited number of characters, and any characters that are non-expandable and not in that set are treated as end-of-expression.
sure, that's what i thought but it's good to have that thread fixed
Thank you, Joseph, for clarifying, and apologies for any confusion from my end. On Wed, Nov 06, 2024 at 04:28:04PM +0100, Hans Hagen wrote:
On 11/6/2024 12:37 PM, Vítek Starý Novotný wrote:
The expl3 programming language from LaTeX3 can be used in other formats as well, including plain TeX and ConTeXt with LuaTeX, among others. Packages (such as my Markdown package for TeX) use expl3 as a format-independent programming layer.
So maybe it's (at least for now) good to stick to luatex/mkiv, also because if markdown is the input there is not that much to gain from luametatex
Using MkIV is feasible for me personally, but we do have ConTeXt users interested in using LMTX with Markdown for text formatting. I’d like to support that if possible, particularly as MkIV may eventually phase out. That said, it's becoming clear that using expl3 with non-LaTeX formats presents challenges. Performance is one issue; expl3 isn't part of the format files for other formats and needs initialization at the start of each run, which adds overhead. More significantly, it often doesn't align with the philosophy of certain formats. For instance, OPTeX prioritizes minimalism and closeness to plain TeX, with more difficult tasks being offloaded to Lua code, making expl3 feel somewhat out of place. ConTeXt, likewise, is Lua-focused, with users more accustomed to Lua than to TeX macros. For OPTeX, we recommend using `markdown.lua` directly. I wonder if that approach might also be the most appropriate option for ConTeXt. Best regards, Vitek