Re: [NTG-pdftex] \pdfprimitive

7 Apr 2007


      Heiko Oberdiek wrote:
...
On Sat, Apr 07, 2007 at 07:53:52PM +0200, Hans Hagen wrote:
...
??? wrote:
...
2007/4/6, Philip & Le Khanh :
...
rather than just PDF primitives ...  If
this is the case, is there any chance of
a better choice of name in a future release ?
Would you prefer a pdfTeX version that suddenly has a primitive \foo
thus potentially breaking all documents already providing \foo ? :-)
if a document provides \foo, then a nw primitive \foo is never seen
because the document obscures it; actually, the user won't even notice;
If the document uses \newcommand, then the user will get an error.
If the user uses a package that uses the new foo, this package
will probably break.
...
\let\mynamespacedprimitive=\primitive
\let\primitive\undefined
...
...
only when a macro package uses \foo there could be a problem but that's
seldom the user's concern
Some will generate bug reports that could have been avoided in the
first place.
\pdfsomething can be in use as well, you never knw what users have defined 

when etex came around \protected and \unexpanded were examples of a command that had a great potential for clashes (context had both already defined but i just use saved meanings then); such is live, such is progress 

Hans 


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