[PATCH] (Draft2) Make X11 server-side fonts and Mule suck less.

[stephen at xemacs.org]

Aidan Kehoe writes:

 >  > No, there's less testing of the registry spec against actual fonts;
 >  > but as I understand the code, XListFonts should only be called once.
 > 
 > That?s not the case.

Then that should be fixed (not necessarily by you).  There's provision
for a cache, at least at the Lisp level.  A working cache (with a
switch to revert to old uncached behavior) could be backported to
21.4, but I don't think an API change like the one you've proposed
should be.

 > which are a _total_ waste of time for Ethiopic or the IPA, especially since
 > that no font will support those scripts is _entirely expected._

There are GNU fonts for both, I believe.

 >  > Er, who says they'll think it's useful?
 > 
 > But if my judgement is reasonable, and I think the work useful,
 > then that?s the closest I can come to predicting that they will

True.

 > too, in the absence of unknown or undocumented philosophical
 > differences with them.

It's that last assumption that is very questionable.  For example, we
know for sure that the author of Carbon XEmacs has philosphical
differences. ;-)  Whether they extend to this issue is another
question, but he has bitched about gratuitous API changes in the past
(with respect to GNU, I'm unaware of complaints about XEmacs).