On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 10:03 AM, Patrick Gundlach
Concerning xml: build a binding for libxml & libxslt with swig should be easy; the API is stable, the library is well tested and available for most platform. Perhaps already exists a lua binding and even an handmade binding is feasible --- so why a fork of Luatex ?
Because a) loading such a module into existing luatex binaries is impossible at the moment (see other mail), b) shipping one platform dependent file instead of two is less hassle and c) compiling only one source is much easier then compiling two or more sources.
Too much drastic. Actually it's possibile to load non-trivial library but not *all* library. As you wrote in #555 with sqlite there are some problems, and I believe that with SWIG you can solve them *without* touch the luatex source/building phase
b) shipping one platform dependent file instead of two is less hassle and c) compiling only one source is much easier then compiling two or more sources. Again shipping and compiling maybe can be better, but not maintenance. A bug in xyz library will be a bug in luatex that the luatex team must solve for all platform.
Even for libxml thare are some prons & cons: a xml-based workflow probably doesn't need the xml side of luatex. -- luigi