[tex-live] serious `slovak' Babel bug

[Zdenek Wagner]

2010/1/4 Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns at cl.cam.ac.uk>:
> Werner LEMBERG <wl at gnu.org> wrote:
>
>> >> Well, the `latin' language module shows how to handle it in a graceful
>> >> way.
>> >
>> > Not really. E.g in the following example latex simply hangs if I
>> > don't uncomment the \ProsodicMarksOff [...]:
>>
>> I'm not sure whether it can be done better.  However, the
>> documentation mentions catcode issues, so Joe User has probably a
>> better chance to identify the problem here.
>
> ime, most "joe user" type people will turn off when encountering the
> phrase "catcode issues".  they may be commonplace to many readers of
> this list, but an ordinary latex-user-in-the-street wouldn't encounter a
> catcode change from one year's end to the next.  (what latex books
> have catcodes listed in the index? -- none that i have available to me,
> and neither lshort nor "beginning latex" mentions it either.)
>
And even if they are more educated, the error message dos not tell
them anything about the reason. These users do not know that they
should set \errorcontextlines to a higher value. I would agree to
remove the ^ shorthand from slovak.sty if the Slovak users agreed.
There are other issues in czech.sty and slovak.sty though...

> anyway, istm that we are reaching the limit of what babel can reasonably
> do: it's an inherently 7-bit system (extended to 8 bits by inputenc/
> fontenc), but we're discussing an interaction between its 7-bit hacks
> and the needs of engines using unicode input.
>
> that said, i remember being worried by the use of ^^ in tex, when i
> first read about it (it seemed a syntax overload too far, even then).
> given that i would have been reading that stuff more than 20 years ago,
> i reckon, ^^ has had a pretty good run for its money.
>
> r
>



-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz