Vladimir Volovich wrote:
at least please avoid adding new unnecessary primitives in the future. :)
as said, it was neccessary at that time it depends; for instance, when we have open type font support, older pdftex specific font things can go away (like lig prevention); but we don't want to break existing macro code so ... also, the 'we have now etex' argument is not that strong: etex has been around for years now, context has provides etex overloads for quite a while now, but it's only last year that (when latex went etex) etex was seen as a kind of persistent part of tex and became the default engine; and even then, one needs to keep in mind that it will take years before you can really assume that users have an etex aware versions running. (the move from bitmap to outline fonts, dvi to pdf output, cm to lm fonts, changes in (e)fmt suffixes, changed locations of map/enc files, etc, demonstrates how stretched timelines can be) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------